Pt Ruston is one of the most toxic sites in the nation and once the site of Asarco, the only domestic producer of arsenic rat poison.  Asarco dust containing arsenic and lead is back in the news for recently poisoning Tacoma residents, especially vulnerable children.  Pt Ruston is the $1 billion luxury village that Mike Cohen is developing on the former Asarco site.  Residents and workers have launched protests of Mike Cohen's practices.

Federal laws require Mr. Cohen to insure Pt Ruston workers received at least 24 hours of site-specific hazardous material (hazmat) training, signed off on reading a thick manual completely translated in Spanish, and got tested for toxins before starting.  In addition, Mr. Cohen is responsible for daily monitoring of air and soil of the worksite, minimizing contact with poisons such as suppressing dust plumes, providing safety equipment, intervening with more protective equipment if toxicity exceeded certain levels, and providing open communication between workers and his managers and government.  According to the workers, they were afforded none of these rights and conditions.

Workers claim they now have symptoms of arsenic poisoning.  Not only did Cohen fail to simply warn workers of fatal poisons, but many Spanish-only workers got a two page field handout in English rather than the required 100 page manual translated in Spanish.  Workers assert that they were exposed to construction that went beyond a protective cap without proper equipment and training.  A few workers who did receive training may not have gotten the right training and equipment to protect them from higher toxic exposure performing especially dangerous work.

Mr. Cohen's team has denied justice to and retaliated against these whistle-blowing workers.  According to the workers, seeking justice is much more complicated at the Pt Ruston site by threats of violence, professional union-busters, mass firings, poverty wages, no health insurance, and churning the workforce.  On October 16, seven law enforcement vehicles including Homeland Security raided the site at once and rumors and fear spread. 

The workers have been assisted by several unions, religious leaders, and Jobs with Justice despite threats of lawsuits.  They have raised these issues on Spanish-talk radio and in their local Catholic Churches, filmed an interview at Univision, retained a community attorney, and sought redress at State and Federal levels.  Nearby residents have also appealed to City of Tacoma officials as well as many other government agencies and elected leaders cc'd in the message we hope you send.

Despite this help, retaliation only seems to grow worse and government officials and media do not act with urgency or integrity.  Cohen's team which includes City Council-member Rick Talbert and political consultants Thompson & Smitch has rigged free passes to many standards that federal EPA and government officials should be enforcing.

Yet, Cohen cannot hide behind the federal label when Pt Ruston condo buyers see EPA as one more Bush fiasco after the bank crisis, Katrina, and toys and toothpaste from China. Recently, the EPA further devalued human life and resisted recognizing the fatal threat of arsenic. 

According to the executive director Becker of National Association of Clean Air Agencies representing state and local air pollution regulators to EPA, "the value of a life fell 11 percent...  It appears that they're cooking the books in regards to the value of life."  Senior EPA policy official Esty in the administration of first President Bush and now director of the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy said "those decisions are literally a matter of life and death... It's hard to imagine that it has other than political motivations."  Meanwhile, current EPA site manager Rochlin publicly stated about Asarco dust, "you would have to eat 6 pounds of it to make you sick, and I think the dirt would kill you first."  Residents called his bluff "to lick the floor" of nearby Cohen-polluted homes to prove how safe Asarco dust is and he deferred.

Broadening a campaign for justice for Pt Ruston workers will be the only way to change a broken local system that fails to defend the rights of our most vulnerable hard-working neighbors.  In coming messages, we will provide details about government investigations into worker retaliation and sweatshop conditions.  Look for upcoming messages that expose the Cohen team's further attempts to duck accountability through corrupting influence, threats, legal stalls, and media blackouts and spin.

As poverty-wage workers and immigrants, it is a challenge to organize for justice when home and workplace are unstable and language and culture are new.  We do not yet know how widely workers could have unknowingly exposed our community with toxic Asarco dust.  It is important that we help educate all workers that have worked on the Pt Ruston site of the dangers for them and for all of us, especially children. 

For more information, see this background.  Please help us inform developer Cohen that we will hold him accountable.  And help us educate the public about the danger developer Cohen's development model poses to all of us by passing this message onto friends.