— Action Alert —
[For questions, please see contact information for Steve Chase at bottom of page]
Dear Friends,
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Mindfully.org note: Fontenot has indeed been forced to retire. Anyone seeing this differently is either from the AG's office or industry. And the two are probably not far apart. Photos below are of Willie Fontenot being detained and verbally harassed for an hour as they filled out police reports on us for 'Homeland Security' folks and the Attorney General's office. All photos by Stephen C. Kowal |
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Here is an information packet with six key pieces of information about Willie Fontenot, the long-time environmental advocate for the Louisiana Attorney General's Office, who was forced out of his job on April 5th by Attorney General Charles Foti. Fontenot's "crime" was doing his job and assisting students and faculty who were part of an Antioch New England Graduate School's field course studying environmental justice issues in Louisiana, particularly along the stretch of the Mississippi River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The students' only "crime" was standing on a public sidewalk and taking pictures of an ExxonMobil petrochemical facility in Baton Rouge, similar to the pictures of the facility published in ExxonMobil's annual report, for a class project. Almost immediately after taking the pictures, the ANE field class and Mr. Fontenot were detained, lied to, and threatened by off-duty police officials working for ExxonMobil. On the next day, these same "rent-a-cops" from ExxonMobil filed a complaint with Attorney General Foti about Willie Fontenot's outspoken support of the legal rights of the students. Two weeks later, and without any warning, Fontenot was given the choice of retiring immediately or face being fired.
These blatant acts of corporate abuse of power and political corruption must not be allowed to stand. Nor should the deplorable conditions of industrial pollution and environmental injustice that that these actions are attempting to cover up remain out of the public eye. Please help us spread the word about this incident, environmental injustice in Louisiana, and the growing national campaign to get Mr. Fontenot his job back. We will help any reputable journalist with their research on this story. (Photos of the detention incident are also available on request.) While set in Louisiana, we think this is a story of national interest.
Contents of This Information Packet
1) Antioch New England (ANE) Press Release on Willie Fontenot Losing His Job 2) Published News Stories on the ANE Study Trip and Willie Fontenot 3) Short Bio of Willie Fontenot 4) Readings on the LA Environmental Justice Movement and Willie Fontenot 5) Three Needed Action Steps To Support Willie Fontenot 6) An ANE Faculty Member's Letter to Attorney General Charles Foti
1) Antioch New England Press Release
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@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 all night.
The group was released after more than an hour, but later learned that the off-duty sheriff's department officer 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.
2) Published stories and statements on ANE field trip, Willie Fontenot's forced retirement, and the building support for him:
Activists' ally snared in security net http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/capital/index.ssf?/base/news-2/111268246479320.xml
AG staffer retires rather than face hearing http://2theadvocate.com/stories/040505/new_agstaffer001.shtml
Former attorney general staffer gets support http://2theadvocate.com/stories/040905/new_support001.shtml
Field trip eye-opener for Antioch students http://www.keenesentinel.com/main.asp?SectionID=31&SubSectionID=37&ArticleID=61056
The Scourging of Willie Fontenot: How Exxon and Its Rent-a-Cops Used the Guise of Homeland Security to Purge One of Louisiana's Environmental Champions http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair04132005.html
Sierra Club Executive Director's Statement of Support for Willie Fontenot http://www.sierraclub.org/carlpope/2005/04/mixed-news-in-bayou.asp
Louisiana Attorney General in Firestorm Over Incident at ExxonMobil Facility http://www.corporatecrimereporter.com/exxonmobil042105.htm
3) Short Bio of Willie Fontenot
For the last thirty five years, Willie Fontenot has worked on issues involving oil and gas waste, coastal wetlands, water and air quality, toxics, environmental justice, industrial safety, transportation, politics and community organizing.
He received a B.A. degree in political science from the University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1969. During the last 27 years, before being dismissed without warning on April 5, 2005 by Attorney General Charles Foti, Fontenot served as the Community Liaison Officer for the Louisiana Attorney General's Office. In 1978 an earlier Attorney General hired him to help citizens solve their environmental problems by learning how to organize and find technical and legal assistance, and how to work with other groups, their public officials, and the news media. In this capacity he helped to organize more than four hundred groups throughout Louisiana and thirty other states. He also worked extensively with the news media in the development of hundreds of stories exposing corporate or government corruption.
In his spare time, he is an active with a number of groups and presently serves on the Board of Clean Water Action and is a member of the executive committee of the Mississippi River Basin Alliance. He has served on the board of directors of Louisiana Environmental Action Network and also on the board of the Louisiana Labor Neighbor Project. Before joining the Attorney General's staff, he served as the executive director of the Louisiana Wildlife Federation and as chairman of the New Orleans Group of the Sierra Club.
4) Readings on the Environmental Justice Movement in Louisiana and Willie Fontenot
Uneasy Alchemy: Citizens and Experts in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor Disputes by Barbara Allen
Chronicles from the Environmental Justice Frontline by J. Timmons Roberts and Melissa Toffolon-Weiss
Diamond: A Struggle for Environmental Justice in Louisiana's Chemical Corridor by Steve Lerner
"Louisiana: Meandering Rivers of Justice," Chapter 6 from Deeper Shades of Green: The Rise of Blue-Collar and Minority Environmentalism in America by Jim Schwab
"Dow's Water," Chapter 15 in Trespass Against Us: Dow Chemical and the Toxic Century by Jack Doyle
5) Three Needed Action Steps To Support Willie Fontenot
* Publicize ExxonMobil's detention of the Antioch New England Graduate School students as well as the Attorney General's unjust and unwarranted dismissal of Willie Fontenot over the incident. Talk to people about this issue, forward this email to your personal contact list and any listserves you participate in, post it on your websites, and push any media contacts you have to cover the story.
* Write to the Louisiana Attorney General to protest his forcing Willie Fontenot out of his job. Contact him by sending an email to his assistant Ms. Kris Wartelle (wartellek@ag.state.la.us) and demand that the AG 1) offer Willie his job back with full back pay from April 5, and 2) make a public statement to the press admitting the AG;s mistake and praising Mr. Fontenot's many years of public service to the people of Louisiana. Also consider writing letters to the editor about this situation.
*Contribute money to the WILLE FONTENOT SUPPORT FUND. Antioch New England's Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program--in consultation with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, Sierra Club Delta Chapter, Clean Water Action, and the Mississippi River Basin Alliance--has set up a fund to provide Willie with $20,000 a year for the next five years so he can continue his work for environmental justice at a nonprofit of his choice or, if he is rehired by the AG, provide financial support to other environmental advocates and organizers working for environmental protection, corporate accountability, and social justice. (Make checks out to Antioch New England with "Fontenot Support" in the memo section and mail to Steve Chase, Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program, Antioch New England, 40 Avon Street, Keene, NH 03431.)
6) ANE Faculty Member's Letter to Attorney General Foti
From Steve Chase, Director of Antioch New England's Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program and Co-Leader of the "Environmental Justice in the Mississippi Delta" field studies trip:
Dear Attorney General Foti,
I am one of the two faculty members that led the Antioch New England Graduate School field studies class that, while accompanied by Willie Fontenot, was detained, lied to, and threatened by ExxonMobil employees. The "trigger event" for this harassment was that some of our students got out of our parked van and stood on the sidewalk to take pictures of ExxonMobil's chemical facility near Baton Rouge. The students were taking pictures to document the case study that they were learning about that day, one that directly involved the ExxonMobil facility. Given that even a US Coast Guard investigator assured me that there is no local, state, or federal law against photographing industrial facilities from public roadways and sidewalks, I find it very difficult to understand why you decided to force Willie Fontenot out his job over this incident. When he was with us, he was simply doing his job as the Community Liaison from your Office. His only "crime" was sticking up for the fact that our students had done nothing illegal.
As one student at Antioch recently said, "It is a shame that Louisiana's top law enforcement official chose to punish the person upholding the law, rather than those who were misusing it." My student is not the only one who has come to this conclusion. For example, Dick Mason, the Comptroller of the Shintech Corporation wrote me after reading about your decision to force Mr. Fontenot out of his job. In this note, he said, "I am ashamed that this type of incident took place in Louisiana." Indeed, he said he was grateful that Mr. Fontenot had helped us set up a three-hour meeting at Shintech during out study tour as part of his work for your Office. As he noted in his email, "I sent a letter to Willie shortly after your visit telling him how much we enjoyed your visit and thanking him for referring you to us." He then added, "Please be assured that you and your program are welcome at our facilities. For that matter, so is Willie."
Again the question comes up: why would you dismiss a dedicated public servant who has the respect of community activists like LEAN's Marylee Orr and a corporate executive like Dick Mason? Either you are an unjust man with little respect for civil rights, academic freedom, and citizen participation, or you are a very busy man who received bad advice and believed unsubstantiated rumors about Mr. Fontenot that you didn't feel you had time to investigate. I'm hoping the situation is the latter and that you are a busy, but just man--one who will be big enough to investigate this situation and see that Mr. Fontenot did nothing wrong by assisting us in setting up contacts for our study trip--a trip which included visits with chemical industry executives, the mayor of Baton Rouge, two investigators for the EPA's Criminal Investigation Division, a former head of the Department of Environmental Quality, a journalist, several scientists, a variety of environmental and community activists, as well as several people in impacted communities close to petrochemical plants and oil refineries.
I urge you to meet with Mr. Fontenot, to offer him his job back with all of his back pay since April 5, and to make a clear public statement to the press that you value the excellent public service that Mr. Fontenot has provided to the people of Louisiana in the past--and will hopefully provide in the future as a respected member of your Office. This kind of bold leadership would set this particular matter to rest for me. It would also show that you are an honest public servant, one who can face up to a hasty and ill-advised mistake and then take decisive action to make things right. I pray each day that you will follow this path of ethical leadership.
Until such steps are taken, however, my students, my program, and my department are committed to expanding our ongoing publicity campaign and our national letter writing campaign in protest of your treatment of Mr. Fontenot. We will use our contacts and make this a national news story. We will also keep raising money for Mr. Fontenot as part of the support fund we have set up to allow him to afford to continue his work at a nonprofit of his choice in case you choose not to do the right thing. The existence of this fund and the money we raise for it will also be heavily publicized--as will the reason it is necessary. Perhaps the advisors who told you that you should force Mr. Fontenot out of his job expected that a small academic group from New England would not work hard to support Mr. Fontenot once they returned home. If this is what your advisors thought, they were wrong. We have the time and the resources and a growing list of state and national allies who will continue to expose your office's abuse of Mr. Fontenot until you correct this situation.
I don't mean to suggest that we are spoiling for a fight. My students, my co-leader, and myself would all like to focus our full attention back on our studies. While we are quite prepared to keep up our campaign directed at you as long as needed, we are not zealots who want to beat a dead horse and fight this fight forever. We sincerely hope that you will take corrective action very quickly and that we can put out a press release thanking you for correcting this grave mistake and go back to our studies.
Finally, I want you to know that I have a copy of memo I sent to your Office on January 25. This letter was requested by Mr. Fontenot to spell out the type of assistance we were requesting of him in his role as Community Liaison at the Attorney General's Office. He used this letter to get his supervisor's OK to work with us well ahead of his February visit to our campus in New Hampshire and our 12 day visit to Louisiana in March. If you would like to see a copy of this memo, I would be glad to send it to you. Mr. Fontenot has been entirely above board with your office in this entire matter.
All my best,
Steve Chase
For More Information, Contact:
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
Steven_Chase@antiochne.edu
http://www.antiochne.edu/es/eao/default.cfm
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