8.25.2003 ET

(CSRwire) PONCA CITY, OK -- Native Americans in traditional attire joined with union members and local farmers today in Ponca City, OK to confront Taiwanese-owned Continental Carbon Company with charges of environmental pollution, creating public health risks, and causing "economic havoc."

The groups held a news conference and ceremonial dance in a field next to the plant and the homes of Ponca Tribe members. Families living in the area regularly complain of carbon black dust that rains-down on their properties and in their homes. This pollution, they claim, has worsened since the company locked out members of Local 5857 of the PACE (Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical & Energy Workers) International Union.

At the News Conference held in front of a traditional teepee, members of the Ponca Tribe and their attorneys announced the filing of a Civil Rights Complaint against the State of Oklahoma, and a pending lawsuit against the company for personal injuries and property damages resulting from the pollution. Union members detailed the company's unfair labor practices and the severe economic hardships suffered as a result of being locked out of their jobs for over two years. They also linked an increase in pollution complaints, since the lockout, to the company's replacement of experience union employees with fewer and less experienced temporary workers.

Immediately following the News Conference, members of the Ponca Tribe, the union, and other concerned citizens marched together -- on foot and horseback -- to the gates of the plant where they presented the company with a copy of the Civil Rights Complaint and a list of Demands. The groups demanded that Continental Carbon: stop polluting the environment; compensate pollution victims; allow a "citizen inspection" to make sure the plant's operations are as safe and clean as possible; move the wastewater lagoons from their present location over shallow aquifers -- or rebuild them to current standards with liners and monitoring wells; and that the company put members of PACE back to work. The day's activities concluded with songs and dances indigenous to the Ponca Tribe.

Continental Carbon was purchased in 1995 by subsidiaries of The Koos Group of Taiwan, a $36 billion Taiwan-based enterprise owned by the powerful Koo Family of Taiwan. The Ponca City plant processes waste oil and sludges from refineries to manufacture the carbon black used in tires and plastic products. All three of the company's plants in the U.S. have been the target of environmental lawsuits.

The Ponca Tribe, which was first detected by the Lewis & Clark Expedition, originally settled in Northern Nebraska. According to Tribe Activist Casey Camp, in 1876, they were forced to walk to Oklahoma in the winter for resettlement -- a trek in which one of three died. Today, approximately 2,500 of the 24,000 residents of Ponca City are members of the Tribe. "Where once we died from relocation, today we are being killed with pollution," she said "Our people are dying from cancer and suffering from asthma and congestive heart failure, and why? The answer is because companies like Continental Carbon value their profits more than the lives of our elders and children. The earth, air and water are sacred and too important to be polluted for business profit."

Speaking for the Tribe, Environmental Program Director Ron Sherron said, "What we have are a group of Americans, who happen to be Native Americans, that are being denied their basic freedoms. Their freedoms have been stripped away by a Taiwanese company that knows it is in the wrong because it has compensated non-Native American victims and purchased some of their homes." Those homes, he noted, are further from the plant than Ponca homes.

In November 2002, PACE and Tribe filed a lawsuit against the company alleging violations of the Clean Water Act associated with illegal discharges found leaking toward the Arkansas River nearby. PACE and the Tribe also filed a 'Notice of Intent' to file a lawsuit alleging violations of the federal Clean Air Act. At the News Conference residents displayed examples of carbon black dust, polluted furnishings, and "black snowballs" saved from the winter.

Attorney Michael C. Bigheart, announced the filing of the Civil Rights Complaint on August 25 with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) against the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ). It charges the state agency, which receives federal funds, with discriminatory permitting and enforcement practices in violation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. "These discriminatory practices allow for pollution and health risks that DEQ officials would never tolerate in their own communities," he said. The DEQ has even stopped sending investigators to respond to citizens' pollution complaints, he added.

Bigheart also announced that he would soon file a series of individual lawsuits against the company seeking to recover damages for personal injuries and property damage. Causes of action contemplated are negligence, private and public nuisance, trespass, strict liability and taking or damaging property for private use. He will also ask the court to enjoin the company from continuing its pollution, he said. The City of Columbus, Georgia and local businesses filed a sued Continental Carbon Company because of the same kinds of pollution problems being experienced here, he noted.

Speaking on behalf of the PACE Union was Todd Carlson, the Chairperson of the Locked-Out Workers Committee. Carlson and 85 other employees, all members of PACE, were locked-out of their jobs after they refused to accept severe cuts in pay and benefits that would have cost each employee about $35,000 per year. "Continental Carbon has been allowed to assault the economic health of our community and our environment," he stated, "The reinstatement of a PACE-represented workforce would be a huge step in the right direction to rectify both situations."

According to Carlson, the number of citizen complaints and days of pollution events had increased in the two-year period since the lockout, compared to the previous two-year period before the lockout. "This shows that a Union -- represented and trained workforce is a community's first and best line of defense against chronic polluters like Continental Carbon Company," he said.

SOURCE PACE International Union

Web site: http://www.paceunion.org

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