warning about students working in the community

[colist at comm-org.utoledo.edu]

[ed: here is a scary story.]

From: Steve Chase <schase at igc.org>

For immediate release
April 8, 2005
For more information, please contact:
Eleanor Falcon, Director of Public Affairs, Antioch New England
603.357.3122 ext 213
efalcon at antiochne.edu

Antioch New England Study Trip Sparks Political Harassment In Louisiana
Respected Environmental Advocate Forced Out of Job By Attorney General

Keene, NH – From March 14 to 25, two instructors and 13 master's 
students from Antioch New England Graduate School’s Environmental 
Studies Program in Keene, NH visited Louisiana as part of a field 
studies course entitled Environmental Justice in the Mississippi Delta. 
During their visit, the Antioch New England class met with a diverse 
array of stakeholders, including elected officials, petrochemical 
industry executives, union leaders, scientists, EPA officials, 
environmental activists, and members of polluted communities along the 
stretch of the Mississippi River that many state officials call “the 
Chemical Corridor” and local people often call “Cancer Alley.” The 
Antioch New England study group also met some people they did not expect 
to, including off-duty police and sheriff’s department officers and 
corporate security officials who detained them on two separate occasions 
because they took photos of industrial facilities from public roadways 
and sidewalks.

On March 16, Mr. Willie Fontenot was accompanying the group in his 
official capacity as Community Liaison Officer for the Louisiana 
Attorney General’s Office. They were touring the neighborhood 
surrounding the major ExxonMobil chemical facility in the area. Mr. 
Fontenot took the group to the neighborhood because ExxonMobil has 
engaged in a program to buy out nearby homeowners who had long 
complained of toxic emissions from the plant. During a stop on a side 
street off Scenic Highway, some students got out of the group’s vehicle 
and took photos of a remaining home and the ExxonMobil facility. 
Students are required to complete a visual presentation about the trip 
as a course assignment and took photos throughout their stay in Louisiana.

Course instructor Steve Chase, the Director of Antioch’s Environmental 
Advocacy and Organizing Program, said members of the group had been 
detained the day before by a corporate security guard near the Shell 
chemical plant in Norco who claimed that photographing industrial 
facilities was a violation of federal law and had threatened Chase and 
the students with images of FBI agents knocking on their doors in the 
middle of the night. Mr. Fontenot explained, however, that while the 
police had every right to stop and ask people who they were, standing on 
public property and photographing facilities was perfectly legal. “I’ve 
researched this extensively over the years because I often give tours to 
academics and journalists as part of my job with the Attorney General’s 
Office,” said Mr. Fontenot.

Within two minutes of the stop near the ExxonMobiil plant, a pair of 
off-duty officers from the Baton Rouge sheriff’s and police departments, 
wearing their official public service uniforms, but in the employ of 
ExxonMobil, quickly detained the group. Fulltime ExxonMobil security 
officials soon joined the detention team. “We were less than impressed,” 
said co-instructor Abigail Abrash Walton, “when one of the officers 
falsely stated that three of the students had gone on company property 
and then falsely claimed that we were refusing to turn over our IDs.” 
When asked by the course instructor about what actions he would be 
taking in filing a report about the group, the off-duty sheriff's 
department officer refused to answer, and instead responded aggressively 
that he was going to call in “homeland security” people who would detain 
the group into the night.

The group was released after more than an hour, but later learned that 
the sheriff’s department had filed a complaint with the Attorney General 
against Mr. Fontenot, the group’s local guide for the day. Both The New 
Orleans Times-Picayune and The Baton Rouge Advocate reported that Mr. 
Fontenot was forced to retire at 10 am on Tuesday, April 5, or risk 
being fired over the incident. Said Mr. Fontenot, “I was advised that 
taking retirement was a better way to go.”

“I am very disappointed,” said Chase, “that our detention served as the 
catalyst for the Attorney General to force Mr. Fontenot out of the 
public service job he’s held for 27 years. Given what we experienced, I 
suspect that this whole matter has just been used as an excuse to remove 
one of the state’s most respected citizen participation advocates from 
the Attorney General’s Office.” Chase added, “I am particularly stunned 
that Mr. Fontenot lost his job when even the U.S. Coast Guard 
investigator who phoned me when we arrived back in New Hampshire assured 
me that there is absolutely no local, state, or federal law against 
photographing industrial facilities from public sidewalks."

Co-instructor Abigail Abrash Walton noted, “This incident showed our 
students a vivid example of how law enforcement and corporations can 
sometimes overstep their legitimate security duties in the guise of 
‘homeland security.’ This experience was also a firsthand glimpse of the 
type of over-the-top repression that community members and their 
supporters told us they experience on the frontlines of trying to defend 
their communities’ health and homes in Louisiana.”

As a response to Mr. Fontenot being forced out of his job, the 
Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program at Antioch New England 
Graduate School is working with Marylee Orr, Executive Director of the 
Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN), to create a fund to help 
Mr. Fontenot make up his lost salary and continue to work for 
environmental justice in Louisiana through a nonprofit organization of 
his choice. The Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program, LEAN, and 
other Louisiana citizen groups and members of the academic community are 
considering further actions aimed at addressing the political harassment 
of academics, concerned community members, and advocates in Louisiana.

# # #

Steve Chase
Program Director
Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program
Department of Environmental Studies
Antioch New England Graduate School
40 Avon Street
Keene, NH 03431
603-357-3122 ext. 298
603-357-0618 (fax)
Steven_Chase at antiochne.edu

For information about the Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program:
http://www.antiochne.edu/es/eao/default.cfm