Living on the Fenceline

Overview | Conversations with Advocates of Fair Growth | Living on the Fenceline

Josephine Bering

Josephine Bering, 86, has lived at 115 Diamond Street in the Diamond subdivision of NORCO, Louisiana for over 60 years. Wearing a white and green plaid dress and white socks, Bering sits in a comfortable armchair next to her aquarium with her pocketbook in her lap. Bering's relatives on Cathy Street have been relocated by Shell and her son moved after his house mysteriously burst into flames killing his two children. Her neighbor has also moved away.

During the interview one of Bering's many grandchildren sleeps on the couch. Bering shows me the cracked and discolored skin on her wrists, which she attributes to the chemicals emitted by the adjacent Shell Chemical plant. To underscore the prevalence of this problem, she calls in another granddaughter from the bedroom to show me patches of discolored skin on her arms. Reluctantly, the 14 year-old girl stretches out her arms. "It is like that all over her body," Bering volunteers. Bering's sister, a former resident of Diamond, died in her early 40's of a respiratory disease that doctors told her was caused by her living next to the refinery and chemical plant.

Bering's father, Edward Joseph Bering, worked for Shell cutting the grass, waxing the floors in the homes of Shell employees, and working at their ice creams store until he retired. Recently, Shell officials paid to help Mrs. Bering fix up her home but declined her suggestion that they relocate her.

Interview:

I've been living here some 60 some years. Not in this house. We had a house over there across the street where I lived with my Daddy. Then my husband, Ernest and I moved here and built this [house]. He [my husband] passed. Quite naturally, with what I was getting from social security, I couldn't repair my house or nothing because I have been here in it. So Shell came in and did us a favor. They repaired it. But I asked them before they did repair my house if it wouldn't be better for them to relocate me then to repair the house because I suffer with asthma and this time of the year I suffer with it bad. I [usually] have to leave to go to California to my daughter to get away from the odor and whatever Shell is putting out. [But] this year I stayed here because the weather is not as bad as it used to be. So I stayed here this year with the asthma.

I have my grandchildren here with me. My grandson he wants to be here with me but he suffers with the asthma and every day and every night when he stays here I have to use the machine because it is just bad. I would like very much, just like I asked the man, Mr. Don Baker, I asked him when he came to see me. I said: 'Would it be better for him to relocate me out of here than to repair.' He said that was two different things. He said repair is one thing and relocation is another.

The repair happened not quite two years ago when they did that for me. I appreciate that what they did for me. But still when it be lightening and thundering and raining, you know, I don't like to stay in here because I remember how when lightning used to hit them tanks and all that spill. And people be running and the whistle be blowing and all of that. I still remember all that.

My Daddy used to work on Shell. He retired from Shell. He was a gardener. He waxed [the floors of] houses, cut grass and that time they were cutting grass with a lawn mower. And he used to walk cutting grass with a lawn mower. My Daddy's name was Edward Joseph [Bering] and [he] retired from Shell.

Shell used to have a terrible odor and it gets so bad even the water you would drink would be nasty. But now, you know, they don't have that right now. Now the odor smells like ammonia or either like bleach and that works on me terribly. My sister, she died: she has been dead about 12 years. The doctor at the hospital said she had a flem on her lungs that comes from over there [at Shell] and that is what killed her. She suffered with that a long time. My sister was 42 or 43 when she died. I'll be 86 on the 15th of March [2002].

I had some relatives over in Belltown. And when Shell Chemical bought that property from George Van Zeigel (sp?) and they promised when they were putting it [the chemical plant] up over there that they were going to buy out this whole place. This place in here was called Wattstown. And they promised to buy everybody out in here when they were building that place [Shell Chemical] over there. But it wasn't in writing. They didn't.

The houses that were over there [in Belltown] they give it to the people and some of them tore their houses down and built them back up here. But they promised to buy out the people that was in here. They moved here [from Belltown to Diamond] because this was the nearest place convenient to them. They moved us from Belltown and they said they were going to buy us out and they haven't done nothing.

I notice a lot of people don't want to move because they have been here. I want to get out for the sake of my health. And then I have my nephew and niece staying over there on Cathy Street. OK, they [Shell] bought them out over there. But some time at night my son comes here but he works at night and I go over there and stay with them. But now since they done bought them out and gone I have to go way to Destrehan or way to Reserve [to visit them].

I don't like to be here by myself at night because you don't know what is going to happen. So they done moved them from over there. The people just pass on by and goes from one street to the other. They [kids] be back there with BB guns shooting. I don't like to be here with all my people gone and I am here by myself.

There was a lady living next door but now she is gone. So I don't have nobody here. Over here, that was my son, but his house blew up and killed my grandchildren. I had two grandchildren died. The firemen said it was just a mystery: they couldn't find out [why it happened]. It wasn't a heater. My son and his wife they got out but he got burned and had to go to the hospital but the two children they couldn't get them. They go burned. So that leaves me next to this empty lot. My nephew and niece are gone from over there and leave me here. All I asked them was to help me . . . I am too old to try to go on my own . . . so if they would just go on and relocate me I would like that very much. But otherwise I have to just stay here and wait.

I think it is terrible [that Shell bought out the first two streets near the fence line but not the back two streets]. I think they shouldn't have done that. I see they done put a trailer here on the head of Diamond Road. They said they wasn't buying on Diamond [Street]. So why they want to put a trailer up there. [David Brignac states that the trailer is not owned by Shell.] And you see all that grass there: they went and bought the Gaspard Line [property]. So they just got these two streets in here where they have crowded us in. All we got is to the railroad and to the levee. That is all these two streets go from the railroad and the levee. So we are just jammed in here. We are just jammed in. I just pray to God to help us to guide and keep us. Because when that plant blew up over there I was here and my granddaughter had just come in here from California and she was pregnant. And when that plant blew up she was pregnant with two children [twins]. She got so upset that the doctor told her to get back on the plane right away and come back [to California].

'Kisha, come in here.' Let me show you what happened. We don't know what Shell let out. 'Come here Kisha. Come here.' You see her. See her arms. [They are discolored.] It is all over her body. And the doctor said he don't know what came out. She has a [twin] brother but he didn't get it. The doctors said she wasn't going to live no more than when she got five years old. But she is 14 now.

[During the explosion in 1988] my ceiling came down, my doors and the screen on the porch was bust up, all the glass in the windowpanes was bust up. Oh, the air conditioner fell out of the window. It was terrible. It killed all my fig trees. I don't have a fig tree left. I took some of the fig leaves to a meeting in NORCO and they said they was going to check it. And they carried it to LSU [Louisiana State University] and LSU said that it was because it [the explosion] jarred the earth and killed the trees. It bust up my concrete and knocked the glass out of my car. Oh yes indeed. When I first heard it I was laying in my bed it was three o'clock in the morning. I was just laying there in my bed when I heard the explosion. At first it sounded like steam went off and after the steam came the explosion. And Lord I was looking for fire to come in here. My husband and my son we all got in the car and we drove around and all the windows were bust up, whoo, everything was gone. I hope nothing like that ever happens again. Now I hear the whistle be blowing sometimes and there is an emergency over there and I say: 'Lord, I hope it ain't nothing dangerous.'

Shell paid to fix up everything. But quite naturally you can pay people to do things and they are going to half do it. They did a pretty good job. Then Shell came in again about two years ago and remodeled the house for me. But the only thing was I just hope they will get me out of NORCO. I would go to La Place. I have my church and everything right there. Gaynel Johnson was living here but she moved to La Place. She couldn't stand it [here]. Every time Shell put out something [pollution] it would cut her breath. And she would have to go to the doctor. So she had to go. And my nephew, he was glad to get out of here because they were sick themselves. So he was glad to get out.

My son Charlie Bering, he passed now, he used to be the head of the jazz festival in New Orleans. Some time I go to the spiritual part. That was a big job. People come from all over. Yes indeed.

Another thing, they are cutting down on the insurance for the houses [in Diamond]. And another thing, you see this HMO, you can't get but one of them in here. The others don't want it. I have Oath. The others don't want to come in here. The others don't want to take it. And with Oath I have to pay so much money. Now I be short-winded. [She puts her hand to her chest.] They have what they call a Smart Plan. And for the houses you can't get much insurance for them.

I will tell you what would be fair. I would want them to buy me a house like I have here. Now you can't get rooms as big as what you have here. I would want me a turn key and enough that I would get my house all fixed up. So for that $150,000 would not be too much for them to do to help me. It has to definitely be away from the plant and a similar size. My property goes all the way back. I wouldn't ask them to buy a similar amount of land. But I would want me a decent house that I could rely and rest in. And no note [mortgage] on it. I am too old for that now. [Do they owe that to you?] Oh, yes indeed. And this [house] they can have it and make an office out of it. [Laughs]. Oh yeah.

They [Shell officials] said they bought it [the Gaspard/ Mule' property] to make some kind of a playground or I-don't-know-what out of it. But the people is complaining about Shell. You see that was a dividing line with them trees and things. Dividing the black and the white. That is what it was. But Shell bought that so they are complaining on them: why did Shell buy them two streets over there [Washington and Cathy Streets] and leave these two streets [Diamond and East Streets] over here. That is what they are hollering about. If they had bought these four streets they would have been more satisfied than for them to buy two [streets], jump over two [streets], and then go buy those trees. What it tells me is that they [Shell] want to keep these two [streets] in here. I don't know why. But that is what they are doing. They can leave these two streets in here. All they have to do is buy the people out and let them go. And if they want to make something here for themselves let them go on in and do it. But just give us enough to get on out of here. That is the best thing to do.

[In other parts of NORCO] some of the people are working for Shell or getting a salary from Shell. And they are not going to complain and they are going to let Shell continue paying them. I talked with some of them my own self and they told me they ain't going nowhere. They are not going nowhere. They are going to stay right where they are at. 'Cause I go to the senior citizen and talk to them people. They tell me they are building even back there. [Why do they feel differently?] Because they are getting stuff from Shell. Jobs and money they are paying them. Some of them got old and can't work and Shell is paying them.

They [Shell] was paying my Daddy but they weren't paying him much. I think they were giving him some $60 a month and he had been on Shell. And I don't know why they are doing me like that because they know my Daddy been working [at Shell] and he been there with them working for just [about] nothing. And then they are holding me in here. For what? My Daddy used to work on Shell and push the lawnmower from front to back. Walking lawnmower . . . not riding. And after he got through that he went in there and waxed people's houses. Then they had a little ice cream shop in there and he worked in that. My children used to go over there and pick up the bowling pins and stuff. They used to work there. They hired the youngsters to pick up the pins and stick them in the holes for them people bowling. They couldn't bowl themselves, no. [Laughs.] They wouldn't let them children in to bowl. [Laughs again.] No indeed. And they didn't go in no swimming pool. I didn't know Shell had no swimming pool over there.

I was in California then [when Helen Washington and Leroy Jones were killed in 1973] but they [relatives] called and told me. I'm glad I wasn't here. I knew Mrs. Washington. I knew her well. She used to go fishing all the time. When I was in California they called me and told me that Shell had a pipe under their house and that pipe was a gas pipe or something and their house blew up. And the child was out there cutting grass and it knocked him out dead. I don't know how much Shell paid them. The lady [Leroy Jones' mother] she just died. We just buried here, the mother of the boy. She was staying here renting on Cathy Street but she moved to Diamond. We just buried her two weeks ago. Margie Richards mother just died. People just keep dying. Just like me: I don't look to be here too long. That's why I want to just get away from here before I die. There is a lot of cancer going around. Yes indeed.

You see my hand and my foot [shows me discolored and cracked skin on her wrist]. When I get away from here from Shell it clears up. But when I get back it comes back. That is the same thing that was on my sister's arms. What can I do? I can't leave. I don't have the money to get out of here. So I have to just stay here and suffer with it. So I just get along with it until the good Lord calls me on in. If they would move me out of here and relocate me I would sure be happy. I surely would.

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