Living on the Fenceline

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

Janie Campbell

Janie Campbell, 80, lives at 127 Diamond Street in the Diamond subdivision of NORCO, LA. She has lived in Diamond for 40 years. Her husband died in 1961. She has nine children and a small army of grandchildren, great grandchildren and great great grandchildren. She did housework and janitorial work to make a living until age 70. Her daughter, who lives a few streets away and has helped her over the years, is being relocated by Shell. Campbell is worried about being left alone with no one to care for her. She also worries that during the next explosion or gas leak from the Shell Chemical plant and Shell Refinery that no one will think to come rescue her. She has no car and cannot drive due to poor eyesight. The last major explosion, during which she and her children were evacuated in a dump truck, left her so upset that she has been taking pills for her nerves ever since. She wants Shell to buy her home and pay to relocate her so that she can have some peace of mind and not worry about being killed by an explosion or toxic emissions from the plants.

Interview

I lived here since 1962 when I moved here from La Place [a neighboring town]. My husband took sick in 1961, he had a stroke, and I moved here [to Diamond] in 1962. I had seven small children and two grown up kids who were married. At that time my kids were still small. My husband didn't have the real best job (but he had a job) so the benefits weren't that good. He was working for Louisiana Power and Gas but he was like a labor worker.

So I was looking for a place cheap enough that I could buy so I wouldn't have to be moving backwards and forwards with my kids. So we found this little house here for $4,500. So I moved here and my husband died in 1966.

All my children are grown up now: five boys and four girls. I have one daughter, Mary, here in Diamond. She lives on Cathy Street and is about to move out. I feel real bad about that because she is all I have here to look after me. I made 80 years old in December. I was born in 1921. I have a cyst on my spine so I have back problems and I and I sat in the bed about 4-5 months because I couldn't walk. But God lifted me up and I am walking again. Some times I can [make] do [by myself] and sometimes I can't. And then I have arthritis that just set in. So my daughter is all I have to help me. She comes in the morning to check on me and see how I am doing and if I need her to do something she will do it. Sometimes she will fix me a meal or something and she will bring to me. And if I am sick she is always there to take me to the doctor. And that is all I have.

And if something happens here, if they have a spill, or something happens she won't leave me, she will pick me up, you know, and she will take me with her. And is she leaves I will feel like I am all alone. It is scary, very scary. Sometimes I open my door when the kids come to visit and if I let them out at night [when they leave] you can't breathe. Sometimes that odor is so bad. And I get short breath and I take pills. And sometimes I go to the hospital and they have to give me a breathing treatment or something like that. Then, I am a diabetic and I have an irregular heartbeat, and I have pressure, and I have nerves, I have to take nerve pills twice a day.

I am nervous about the situation here. It has been a problem. I can't remember the year, but I was sitting on my porch right there and something blowed up at the chemical plant. And it killed an old lady [Mrs. Washington] and a little boy [Leroy Jones] who was in the yard. And the fire it seemed like it was coming over my house. At the time I had two daughters living here and they had gone to La Place to the grocery store and I had all their kids so it was like the world was coming to an end for me. And the funniest part is that every time the kids would start screaming and hollering and jumping up I would say: 'Shut up, shut up.' But then I would start screaming. It wasn't really funny.

Then my son-in-law he came in a dump truck . . . you know how big a dump truck is. And believe it or not I climbed up in the back of that dump truck I was so frightened . . . nothing was too high for me to get in. So all the kids jumped in the back of the dump truck and he took us away for a while. And the little bitty one he put in the front with him.

I was working for a lady at the time and when she turned her faucet on it would make a noise. And I would run down the hall hollering and screaming that it done blowed up again. Or something else had happened. She told me I had to go to the doctor so I went to the doctor and he said my nerves were just shot. I went to the mental health clinic and did those blocks and drawed those dolls and then I said to the doctor: 'My nerves are bad but I don't think I'm crazy.' So I went to Dr. Gross and he said: 'Janie, you are not crazy. He said: 'You need some pills.' I would take nerve pills and they would make me sleep so much that I couldn't cook for my kids. And I had to wait for my kids to come home to watch the pot [on the stove]. So I told the doctor to give me something a little milder that I can do my work because I had seven kids to look after. Because I would go to sleep and I couldn't wake up. Now I take one in the morning and one at night because I have to take one at night to calm my nerves so I can sleep; and I take one in the morning to keep me going all day. So I have to deal with that. Shell has not paid for that because I have a Medicaid card and the state pays for it. So I have lived with this all that time because I had nowhere else to go.

Then [in 1988] when Shell had this big explosion it picked up my house off the pillars and dropped it back down. The house just jumped up and fell back down. It is still not level because they didn't give you enough money. So they didn't ever level my house. They gave me a little money for the things that were lost and broken.

Believe it or not, because I was so poor, and I couldn't run air conditioning like other people, I had my windows kind of open so the air could come in. So that saved me a whole lot and it saved my kids . . . it saved their life . . . because I had my windows cracked open so the explosion went through the house. They say I was blessed. One of the workers stopped by and he said: 'You must be a praying woman, Mrs. Campbell, because everybody's windows and everything is broken but not yours. But my windows got stuck. You couldn't push them up and you couldn't put them down because the house had twisted. So they replaced the windows.

When I went through that . . . I never went through Hell because I have never been there . . . but it was just like going through Hell . . . you know what I say . . . it was so scary. And since that time I don't sleep, I sleep light. And if the house creaks I wake. And if the train hit connecting with each other I sit up in bed and say to myself: "Well, that is just the train.' You know what I'm saying. So it is just scary and I have to live on nerve pills and I think it is just horrible. You have to live on nerve pills to keep you together at night. I just shake because it is too much pressure on me. I'm frightened.

Am I talking too much? I'm just telling you how I feel about where I live here now. Because when I moved here I had never heard anything had happened to the chemical plant or to Shell. And I had never been around plants before. All I knew was people were working there and I thought one day one of my five sons might get a job there. But it never happened so why not move.

You know how I feel? I feel like I'm in a hole. Because every now and then the spillway is full of water and you can't go through there to escape. And I never did swim. And we have the river right here. We can't go across the [railroad] track unless we go to Apple Street. And when something happened to Shell [Refinery] they block Apple Street off. And if there is nobody to come in here to get me what am I going to do? So I feel like I'm in a hole. Have you ever seen a hole way down and there is no way for you to come out? Well I feel like I'm in a hole. I'm in a hole with nowhere to go. And when I think about it it really upsets me. I have nowhere to go: I'm surrounded. The track is there, the river is there, you don't know when [an accident] is going to happen and that spillway could be full of water. And you can't swim it, and you can't walk it, and you can't go through it with a car because it be so high. And if they close down Apple Street and if you can go that way where are you going to go? Where am I going to go? Not just me; everybody who lives here.

Thank God when Shell blowed up the spillway didn't have no water in it and a lot of people were going that way. It is like you are running and nowhere to go. So they went through the spillway because Shell [refinery] was on fire. If there had been water in it where would they have gone? And I never drove in my life because I have really bad eyes. I was born with bad eyes. (I just put drops in them) And I don't have a car. So I am dependant on someone else to help look out for me.

And the funniest thing was that a cop brought a subpoena for one of my grandsons for child support. So yesterday, when he came here I was telling him how frightened I was and how now I had nobody to come . . . if my daughter leaves and there is an accident will I have to be out in the streets waving and hollering and screaming . . . and people might be all in a rush and their car would be loaded and pass me by. So the cop made a joke out of it and he said: 'Mrs. Campbell, if anything happens at Shell I will come get you.' And I said: 'That is so sweet.' But maybe he wouldn't have a way to come get me. Because the last time we had an accident over there they were not letting people in. You could go out but you couldn't come in. So if I was here alone and nobody could come in to get me . . . you know, give me a break. I just wish I could get away from here and before I die so I could have peace of mind; and sleep one night in peace without being afraid the plant is going to blow up. They have a plant right across the way here, and they have one right over here, and one right down there. So we are surrounded with plants. It is not like they are ten miles or five miles away. They are right here.

And the odor . . . if you could smell it . . . it is just horrible. And now and then they have like VROOM, VROOOM, like something they are trying to keep from blowing up. It wants to blow up and it is trying to escape from something. And the flares, when they have the flames coming out the top and it makes a noise like something that is too full and it is trying to escape . . . the pressure. And you don't know is it going to explode. You don't know what it is going to do. Nobody knows but the good Lord. And I don't think they could tell me that. 'Oh it is not going to happen.' They don't know. They didn't know that cat cracker was going to blow up. They didn't know that. Nobody but the good Lord knew that. But God spared us that time. But we don't know if He is going to spare us the next time. And God gave you five senses and if you know that you are in a place that is not good for you . . . if you can get out of the way get out of it. And I just plead to Him and beg to Him if they [Shell officials] can get me out of here then maybe I can live two more years or to 84. {Laughs.] Just for the peace of mind. Think of how long I haven't had peace of mind living here. And it is not like I can go anywhere. My [government] check is like $525 a month. You can't move on that. And nobody ain't going to buy here in NORCO to live because everybody is afraid. I can't sell me house to nobody. Nobody don't want it.

Shell said they weren't going to buy on these two streets Diamond and East. Every time we talked to them about it they said it was out of the picture. All they said they wanted was the fenceline. Now the fenceline was Washington and Cathy Street. So what I find is so horrible is for them to skip these two streets [where I live] and go buy Gaspard Line which don't have nothing on it but trees. Gaspard Line can't help us if Shell would blow up. It is not a help for us to get out of here . . . . so show me how Gaspard Line is going to help us. It can't. It's just grasses and trees: that's all I see.

How I feel about it is if they can buy the other two streets . . . my back yard is hooked on to this other property . . . so if they are going to buy that property why won't they buy mine. We are right up on top of each other. If they [relocated neighbors] could smell it why not me. If the plant is going to blow up and it would hurt them, why not me? I am right in the same spot with them. You understand what I am talking about? I am right next door. And if the fire could take them it could spread and burn my house to...that's the way I'll put it so you can know what I am talking about. So if they can buy them because they are close to the fenceline . . . we are close to the fenceline too. You understand . . . we are all together just in one little huddle. And I don't think it is fair. I don't think it is fair at all. I just pray to God that God can open their heart and they can realize what we have been going through for years here. And it is just time for them to do something to help us. That is my prayer.

I don't know what [excuses] they are saying, but I knew a lady named Miss Dash and she lived back by the track and she told me about 25 years ago that they had signed a paper with Shell, because her husband was working at Shell, and they was going to buy all [the properties] up to Mary Street. But at the time it wasn't worrying me. But since all this has happened and the air is getting more and more odor . . . it is so bitter sometimes you go outside and it is bitter on your tongue. Like you open your mouth and inhale that odor . . . and if anybody says they don't smell that odor . . . you can be coming towards NORCO in a car and you smell it. If you can smell it just riding through how do you think we can smell it living here. We deal with it every day all through the day. So I don't know what is going on. I'm just telling it like it is.

I've been working so hard on this relocation. We started picketing [because] so many kids were being sick with all this mess with all this stuff coming from the plant. So we started walking picket right on the highway. I had a sign that said: 'WHAT IS THAT SMELL. IT'S JUST SHELL' Because it is Shell Chemical and Shell Oil. People would pass by in their cars after work and yell out the window: 'You ought to just go sit down somewhere.' But we never stopped because we thought it was time and that there were so many people, mostly everybody in NORCO had a cancer. Everybody that I knew they died of the cancer. And they all have their breathing machine. A lady died day before yesterday and she had a big old breathing tank she had to travel with all the time because she couldn't breathe. Another young girl she died. And we worked and never stopped and then we went to court. And we lost the case. But I told my son-in law when we lost the case (because he makes good biscuits) I said: 'You make the biscuits and I will pray because I said there is a God.' And this is not because we wanted to leave because everybody loves there home and where they have been for years. But when you can't you just can't [stay]. When you see water coming over the levy you move so you won't drown, you know what I mean? So we worked so hard for that and I worked from the beginning. I was the first one out there with little Margie [Richard]. We would be out there in the hot sun marching. And we would get out there early in the morning marching. And there was one man driving one of those big old machines up to the Chemical plant and he said to me: 'Do you smell something?' and I said: 'Yes.' And it was the truth. It was nothing that we was making up. It was for real. It is a story you can tell the rest of your life because this [struggle] is for real. We need to get out of here. Because if we don't it is going to be a sad story because I always feel that something bad . . . something else is going to happen.

Not too long ago my daughter and my son-in-law we had to take stuff and put it over our face and nose because the odor was so strong. And he was trying to drive. And it was horrible. We shouldn't have to do that.

Breathing the air is the worse part because you have to inhale that all the time even in your house. I go somewhere and when I come back even in my house it has a funny odor. It is like it sinks in through the cracks. I don't care how you have your house built, still in all it seeps in and out. And when you come into NORCO, oh my God, there is the smell. But you have to inhale that all the time. A lot of times I open my door to get a breeze but then I have to hurry and close it back because sometimes it smells like rotten eggs and sometimes it smells like . . . I don't know how to describe it . . . it just has a bad odor. We were coming back the other day and the odor was so strong and there was a big fog and my daughter said I can't see and I can't drive and I can't breathe. I told her to try to make it and we got through. But it is just horrible.

It is just not that I worry the plant is going to blow up; it is the every day thing . . . and every night. And it seems like the late hours of the night they let the most stuff out. So it is not just the two bad explosions, it is the every day thing. And when you close your windows, close your doors, turn your air conditioner off, and fan off, then it is so hot you suffocate. Then I have to leave and stay places and we stayed all day and we had to buy food and you have to spend money where you are at. That is horrible.

When I go away from here for a while I start to feel better. I breathe better. But when I get home I get sick. And it burns my eyes. So I have drops I have to use. I leave here and I feel happy, but when I come back, there it is again.

My next-door neighbor was very good to me. If I would feel bad or if there was an odor she would call and say: 'Don't open your door.' But she moved. Her house is empty. She had a car that would have been some kind of transportation for me but she is gone. She moved. These people on the other side are staying until they fix their trailer and then they are going to move. So I'm going to be all alone. The whole neighborhood is shrinking, whittled away. And then the girl in the next house she says she is going to move . . . she has been sick for I don't know how long and she says she just can't take it. She said she is going to move. Her name is Patricia White. But I am stuck here. I can't pay no rent. There is no way I can move with $500 a month. I can't pay no rent. If I pay rent how am I going to pay my utilities? So if they could buy me out and find me a place, a decent place to live . . . and pay for it . . . so all I have to do is pay my utility bills like I am doing now . . . I would go. I don't have to picket. I'm not particular as long as it is a decent place and it is not raining in there and the plumbing and the floors is good, I am not a picky person. I am not picky. I just want to get away from here. I am looking just to get away. I just want to be gone. But I couldn't go somewhere and pay rent. I am not able to do that.

I own this house and I've paid off this house. And I keep it up. Right now I live here by myself . . . all my children are gone. They all have their own place. And I love my little home because I am used to it. It is not the house. Everything is right where I can reach it and everything. It is not that I want to move so I have a better house. No, no, no, no. That is not me. I just want to get out of here. Someone told me they are building nice new homes in another part of NORCO and I said: 'Miss, if I moved there I will still be where I am at, I want to get away from here.'

If you see a storm coming and they say: 'Go To Shelter,' and you don't go to shelter, then you will die. I don't care how old I am I don't want to die now. I want to live. I still want to live. Do you know anybody who wants to die? I am 80. I have 9 children and grandchildren and great grandchildren because they are still having them. And I have eight great great grandchildren. So I have a large family.

Shell has grown a lot since I moved here. When I moved here Shell had houses in that plant. They had house there. I started working for them because I was very poor and I went to a doctor because I was sick and I told him I was looking for a job and they had kids so I used to work for them. And they had houses in the plant. Now the houses are gone and they expanded the plant. And this plant here [the chemical plant] wasn't here.

I did housework until I was about 70 years old. I always had bad eyes. I can read and write . . . I went to the 8th grade in school. But I did nurses assistant; I did that for awhile. And I worked over here at Shell doing janitorial work for a while. What stopped me was that an alarm went off and I thought that Shell was going to blow up and that they had forgotten me back there by myself. And I was trying to climb the fence and all that. And afterwards I gave them the key because I couldn't do that no more. So I did housework because I have always been a sickly person. The people I worked for were so nice. This lady who used to live in the plant she recommended me to her daughter and I worked for her daughter for 20 some years in NORCO.

I don't know why all the blacks live on one side of town and all the whites live on the other, but when I moved here that is the way it was. All of us were in one little [area] here from the track to the river and we had these four little streets. And it was all black. And they had the Gaspard Line in between us to divide us from the whites, you understand, and the whites were living over on the other side. Where I was living in La Place I had white people living near me . . . . like a normal place. When I moved here I almost thought it was strange, you know . . . . we were like all to ourselves and they were to themselves. We had our own black school right here where the swings are now. They closed the school because of integration so the children had to go to other schools. But when I moved here the blacks went to the black schools and the whites went to the whites schools.

When Shell built its swimming pool, bowling alley and all that I never went there. And none of my kids did. My kids would swim ion the spillway and I used to beat them half to death because I was afraid they would get drown, you know. We never had a swimming pool. But Shell had a swimming pool and a bowling alley . . . we didn't have that. The only thing we ever had was the three little swings we have now and the basketball. And before that we had nothing.

I knew just a few people who worked at Shell. I don't know too many people who work there. People feel bad about not being able to use the swimming pool or bowling alley or get the jobs at Shell. I felt bad and I felt bad for my kids because I had some educated boys. But there is nothing you could do about it. So.

And the prices Shell is offering people to buy them out on Washington and Cathy Street, I don't think they are fair. People weren't saying too much about it but I saw some of the prices in the newspaper and I don't think it was fair. I saw some for $101,000 or something like that. But what I say is that houses are so high and so expensive. And you have to tear your house down and clean everything up before you can get your money. By the time you go through all that and get someone to move you I don't think $100,000 is enough to cover it. Because you can't find no cheap houses unless it is all torn down or falling apart and if you do it you still don't have enough money. Because it cost money just to do little things in this house. And I have to save a dollar and a dollar and a dollar because I don't want to be in no debt because I am too poor to pay. So I don't think it is a fair price. Some [whop were relocated] had six or seven rooms and they had to go to a smaller house.

I wouldn't buy a house in NORCO. I don't care how beautiful it is I wouldn't want it. I'm going to get ready to get a shack somewhere else. That is the way I feel about it. So I don't fell people are getting a fair price but what are you going to do. People want to get away from here so bad. So people are desperate because they know what they have been going through here and they don't want to raise up children here in this mess.

I have two bedrooms, a kitchen, bathroom, and sitting room. It wasn't much with seven kids here but when you are poor you make do. But I am happy and it is mine. I have everything I need . . . a washer/dryer. And I take care of what I have. And I like a clean yard and a clean house. I am happy with my house. I am not happy where I am living. That is my problem. There is no other way for me to say it than the way I feel.

I do a little gardening in the springtime, but it don't work good. I think it is from the pollution. If you plant tomatoes they come out too small and before they get ripe they are falling off the bushes. The stems die and get brown. Then when they die the tomatoes wither. I love gardening because I was raised with a garden. My father was a gardener because my mother had 11 children. So we ate out of the garden: sweet potatoes, string beans, okra and all that. But when you do it here . . . I try to put it close to the house so too much of that stuff won't fall on it . . . but still it just wastes away. The stems die and then the tomatoes dry up like prunes. And you are afraid to eat it.

My roof was a brown roof and now it is black. I'm not up there painting it. Where I patch it you can see the different light color. And my house got spots in it. But I painted it and covered some of the spots. Like oil spots on the aluminum up at the top . . . like something was sprayed on it. So I had to paint the whole house because you couldn't wash it off. And if you leave your car here for a few days it is full of little spots. Oh well. It is part of living here.

I spend less time outside than I would normally. I stay inside. And this morning I had my back door and front door closed because you don't want to inhale all that stuff. But I hate to be locked up in the house: I feel like I'm in prison. You have to stay inside. Once my son was barbecuing outside and something sprayed on it and we couldn't eat the food. You could see this brown stuff on the food and we had to throw it all away. I think they [Shell officials] gave us a little change for it.

Every time something happens someone comes around and asks us to sue. So we sue. We do a class action and all that stuff. The money [Shell] is putting out with all these little things . . . that is money they could use to buy us out. Any they are just giving $100, $200, 400. But you are still sick and you can't do nothing and all the hundreds of thousands of dollars they are paying to those lawyers for these suits could be used to buy us out and then they wouldn't have to pay that. That is the way I feel about it. Plus they could be saving your life and your health. You know what I mean? You don't want to see people sick and dying of cancer. There is so much pollution out there because we are surrounded by the plants.

And I can't understand how they think there is a shield between Cathy Street [where they are relocating people] and this street [where they are not]. Is there a [invisible] shield from the sky all the way down to the bottom? The same thing they get we got it too. And if Shell says that they are not buying up homes here to protect people from their pollution I would ask them: 'Do you want to swap homes for two days . . . I wouldn't give them a full week. I would let them live for two days in NORCO and see what the pollution is, you understand.' We had a bucket [from the Louisiana Bucket Brigade] we used to catch it [bad smelling samples of air] in. I don't understand how they could say that. There is more pollution here . . . that is the problem more than anything else's. We might have had two big explosions here but the problem is the little ones . . . . it is the every day thing that is a problem.

I hope they will listen to us. I hope through the good Lord that they will listen to me and understand where we are coming from. I know there is a God and I hope God is going to open their heart up. He is going to open it up . . . and they are going to do what is right.

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