Shrimp Fisher, Environmentalist, Activist

VoiceYourself is proud to introduce Earth Shaper, Diane Wilson, a fourth generation shrimper who grew up in Seadrift, Texas…population 1000. This place surrounded by idyllic lakes, bays and rivers is where Diane spent the first 40 years of her life, towing the lines, on the water as well as in  her role  as a wife and mother of five. But when her way of life, the lives of people she loved and the life of her beloved San Antonio Bay were threatened, she got fighting mad. Her pursuit of justice started in 1989, when e discovered that her home, Calhoun County, Texas had been named one of the most toxic places in America, she decided to take action. These companies continue to illegally spill millions of pounds of chemicals into the gulf bays, while their hired-gun PR firms busily under-played the chemical plant explosions and soaring local cancer rates. This was business-as-usual for Dow/Union Carbide, one of the biggest toxic offenders in Calhoun, also responsible for the now famous/infamous 1984 pesticide gas leak at its plant in Bhopal, India, killing 20,000 over the last 20 years.

In the 16 years since she began her fight, Diane has received death threats, and suffered intimidation tactics; shots were fired at her house from a helicopter and her dog was poisoned.

When she learned that her county,the smallest in the state, was dubbed “the number one toxic hot spot” in the nation. Worse still, Formosa Plastics wanted to expand its facilities just miles from her home. (The battle against Formosa Plastics, the subject of a short film by Ilana Trachtman titled, ‘Diane Wilson: A Warrior’s Tale’. Media that Matters, 2003 Online Film Festival was awarded the Woody Harrelson Environmental Award) Woody presented the award to Ilana and was thrilled for the opportunity to meet Diane. Today Diane is an inspiring speaker who urges everyone to stand up for what he or she believes is right. “If a fisherwoman with a high school education that doesn't even like chemistry can get compliance from a petrochemical plant, then anyone can.”

Over the past decade Diane has engaged in successful campaigns including lengthy hunger strikes and an attempt to sink her shrimp boat to get some of the nations worst polluters; Alcoa, Dow Chemical and Formosa Plastics to stop their polluting practices. As Diane's voice for change grew louder she suffered the abandonment by friends and paid a high price at the hands of corporate bullies. Diane Wilson is a true hero. Read more about this courageous activist and her accomplishments.

Everyday Diane risked serious injuries in one of the most dangerous occupations in our country but the fight of her life would be a decade long battle against unseen dangers. Poisonous toxic chemicals flowed freely into the waters from the huge petrochemical facilities, killing her way of life and life of the bay. She saw hundreds of dead dolphins and pelicans floating in the waters and the shrimp she caught also came up dead. She didn’t need a PhD in chemistry to realize something was horribly wrong.

The final blow was the day Big Bill, one of her dearest friends and most popular shrimpers, whose body was riddled with horrible sores from exposure to these toxins, pointed to an article in the local newspaper, the Victoria Advocate. It reported that Calhoun County was # 1 in the country for toxic emissions to the air, injection wells and water. Although this news was more than she could bear, the idea of digging into the messy affairs of these conglomerates was daunting. What were the odds of Diane figuring out what the pollutants were, where they came from, who was responsible and what legal means could be pursued? Diane’s one-woman movement is all the more remarkable because girls were raised to believe that women’s lives were defined by silence. Diane says, “That’s the way women were down there, you didn’t speak out. Your opinions weren’t valued. And so you learned to be invisible.”

Diane is profoundly expressive about her bay. “I became solely drawn to the bay…it was a woman, like my grandmother and she always greeted me….I felt one with the bay.” With maternal drive she acted as a mother protecting her child because the assault was “like someone was trying to take one of my kids.”

Diane learned everything she could about chemistry and chemical waste so she could make her case and take it to the state legislature, industrialists and regulators. To give you an idea of how remarkable this is, just read a single report of the toxic cocktail waste that spewed into her waters in a Toxic Release Inventory. Now multiply this by the thousands. It took a full year for Diane to understand what all the documents meant. She researched, asked questions, demanded answers and came to understand that Formosa Plastics could be held accountable for their mismanagement.

Formosa was illegally pumping millions of gallons of discharge a day into the waters that are "nursery areas" for crab and shrimp. Diane made enough noise to make the big boys nervous. Even though, many folks were sympathetic in private, publicly they were afraid to speak out because they depended on these plants for jobs. Worse, the chemical companies and the elected officials in government were in business together.

What Diane asked for was “… an environmental impact study. Which means before you can build a huge plant you have to study what kind of impact you are going to have and if it’s bad you have to figure out a lesser impact.” Suddenly plant managers, commissioners and government officials were showing up at her shrimping boat and fish house. “They were trying to get me to stop what I was doing, or control how far it went,” Diane said. “I got offered all kinds of stuff. I was discouraged and intimidated in all kinds of ways. But I wouldn’t let it stop me.” Formosa executives tried every trick in the book to intimidate anyone who might support Diane. The constant intimidation, name calling, threats to family and even hiring of a cousin to openly spy on her, were tactics used in an effort to silence her.

After about a year and a half she called a meeting with the community and elected officials and demanded a hearing before state legislators. She argued that the jobs created by the new plants weren't worth the cost of poisoning the environment. But Diane knew she was getting nowhere and was feeling pretty desperate. Desperate times call for desperate measures. She found it in the story inspired by Mitch Snyder, a coalman who went on a hunger strike for the homeless; she decided to do the same. Diane believes it was his obituary where “…it mentioned his hunger strike… I thought, I could do that. If he did it, I could do it. I told myself they are not going to get that bay.” Her critics warned her not to do it but she immediately called a reporter and said, “I’m going on a hunger strike.” But she made a tactical error because the local paper had no interest in covering Diane’s strike on Lavaca Bay. She did not know what a cell phone was and was stuck on the shrimp boat for a solid week. The only people that came down to the boat were Formosa’s executives. Diane recalls, “They would come down in their suits, cleaning their nails with a knife saying, ‘Diane you just look stupid doing this. You just don’t know how stupid this looks.’”

Diane staged a second more visible hunger strike traveling to the state capitol to testify at hearings, but still no changes. Over the next few years her journey to save the bay put her in harm’s way and at death’s door several times. No one was on her side and everyone had a reason to look the other way. Even Ann Richards, the so-called “environmental” Governor, was getting heat. Diane decided she had to do something more dramatic. And she did.

On a stormy night, well aware that it is a federal offense for a boat to demonstrate on the water, she powered her 1942 “Seabee” toward Formosa Plastics and threatened to sink it in Lavaca Bay. Her intended “blockade” was a big time offense. Diane recalls, “The coast guard had me tied up on the docks with their lights and boats. In a small town everybody knows what is going on especially down at the docks. So even tied up I got word to a shrimper and he was going to try to pull me out anyway. I could go to jail for 19 years and be fined for sinking my boat and disrupting navigation. I didn’t care what they said.”

Word spread quickly and in that storm risking all they had, many shrimpers went out to the middle of the bay. Diane still marvels at this memory, “They took their boats and went out in Lavaca Bay circling… they were risking their boats. The bay was that rough that they could have lost their boats. I was tied to the docks and I was watching them go out and I was floored because these men rarely do things together. These men are the ones that have lost hope. It was the most proud I have ever felt. I could not believe it.”

By now her brother fired her from a job in the family fish house, her dog was killed and her lawyer abandoned her but Diane’s expertise of processes and pollution grew. “I especially learned a lot about plastics and processes,” Diane said. “It got to the point where I knew figures about companies so well that their experts were calling me for information!”

Diane repeatedly demanded reforms and was repeatedly threatened with fines, jail time and even called an eco-terrorist. They finally realized the lengths she would go to save the bay. In five years, she staged three hunger strikes; almost lost her will to live and even considered suicide. By 1988, after years of protest, Diane's determination paid off with several astounding victories. Her inspirational story of guts and fortitude brought her worldwide attention. She was invited to Bhopal, India where she sustained a 29-day hunger strike to show solidarity for the people who had been demanding justice for 18 years from Dow Chemical for the worst industrial disaster. According to Diane it was a simple decision. “I’ve been a fisherman too long. You don’t have lines that divide the air, the water, the sea or the fish. It all flows together.”

Back home in Texas, she scaled a 70-foot tower and chained herself in the ethylene oxide unit of the Dow Chemical factory. At 52 years of age, Diane hung a 12-foot banner from the top of the tower stating DOW - RESPONSIBLE FOR BHOPAL. The consequences of this action and her result will be decided in January 2004 when she goes to trial.

As a result of her battles, Formosa Plastics agreed to improve standards and signed a zero-discharge agreement. Diane recalls, “they signed it right there in front of my home on the hood of a pink Cadillac.” Although Formosa Plastics has reportedly reduced its discharges by 32%, Diane's work is far from done because the bay is still contaminated. She is taking on other local health issues that affect workers but this time around is accompanied by townspeople, neighbors, family members, friends, and advisors who were inspired by Diane's message. She now has a voice. Diane was even given a seat on Formosa's new environmental watchdog greening board. Ironically, the workers in Taiwan (home to Formosa headquarters) invited her there to inspire workers in the struggle for their rights.

In time, the Formosa Plastics agreement was used as a precedent to take on a host of other chemical companies nearby, including Union Carbide, Dow, Dupont, British Petroleum, and Carbon Graphite. Her immediate focus after Formosa was the chemical plant, Alcoa Aluminum. After her wildly publicized protests at Formosa, Alcoa was an easier target. She recalls with a grin, “It was a great feeling having waited years for Formosa to bend, and then seeing Alcoa fall in line in only 15 minutes.” She says the technology for “zero discharge” is available with only minimal customizations for companies to adapt to higher standards. She refuses to believe government agencies and chemical companies who say such changes must take a long time. According to Diane, “the time is now.”

During the past decade, her actions of civil disobedience included scaling fences, picketing, crashing stock holder meetings and causing a ruckus in the Texas legislature as they were about to pass a resolution to support George W’s rush to war. This action recently landed her in the Women’s Correctional facility near Austin for “just a week”. She wants all of us to know that her resolve to fight is more certain than ever She also joined in a 14-week vigil for peace and protested in front of the White House with the Unreasonable Women For the Earth campaign.

Today, Diane still goes out to her bay to fish but there are too few shrimp to harvest. Instead, Diane line fishes from a small skiff and each day she passes the rusting iron remains of her “Seabee”, the remnants of a way of life. Diane is quick to point out the drastic difference between the prices consumers’ pay of $8-24 per pound of shrimp versus the shrimpers (who still shrimp) takes of $1 per pound.

This woman warrior lives by a single code. She would ask that each of us take our place as the architect and not the victim of our fates.