By Daniel A. Faulk - Country Activist, March 1985
In the summer of 1984 Simpson Timber Company stated that it would be using tetrachlorophenol (TCP—a dioxin containing fungicide) at its Korbel Mill.
Workers, led by the International Woodworkers of America, opposed the use of fungicides. After months of negotiations and the threat of a strike, Simpson settled the matter by promising the union that a failsafe device would be installed in the company’s waterlines to prevent contamination of their water supply.
On February 5, 1985, workers at Simpson Korbel Mill were exposed to the toxic fungicide Busan 1030, a replacement for TCP. The fungicide had leaked into the company’s water supply, contaminating at least twenty workers. Workers noticed the odor of Busan 1030 coming from both their waste water and from coffee purchased at a company vending machine. One mill worker, Lee Lawson, pointed out that the workers were actually lucky that the company had switched to Busan 1030. He stated “If we’d been using TCP—it’s colorless, odorless—it never would have been detected. We would have been poisoned and never known it.”
Simpson’s reaction to the spill was to lay off workers at the mill and refuse to pay them for lost time, Simpson has also argued that just because they promised to install a safety device and then did not do so, is no reason for them to pay workers for a layoff caused by a company mistake.
At the same time, Simpson and its contracted physician argue that Busan 1030 is relatively safe and workers should not worry about being exposed to the chemical.
The following article looks at three of Simpson’s arguments and why each one turns out to be fallacious.
Simpson Timber Company and its representatives, including their company physician justify the continued use of fungicides on lumber, and not paying workers for lost wages during the recent Korbel mill shutdown after a leak of the fungicide Busan 1030 into the factory water system, with three arguments. Each of these arguments should be examined to understand why each of their points is false.
Fallacy #1: No one’s rights are violated by the use of fungicides at the Korbel mill. This argument assumes that if an action by a corporation is in the economic interest of that corporation, then all other rights are waived by workers and the community.
Jerry Ficklin, Simpson’s environmental services manager, for example, told a community meeting in Blue Lake that the use of fungicides was essential to the profitability of the Korbel plant, and if fungicides were not allowed, Simpson would have to consider “consolidating their operation” (read: eliminate jobs).
But the rights of workers and the community are violated by Simpson’s continuing use of fungicides. The most important right that is being violated is that of private property. The most fundamental private property a person owns is their body. Workers at the Korbel mill have been contaminated with up to 427 parts per billion of TCP (trichlorophenol). Even one part per billion violates a person’s property rights to be free of chemical trespass. Simpson Timber is committing trespass against its workers’ bodies and is not being charged with the crime.
The community’s rights are also being violated. Simpson Timber has twice violated the Water Quality Control board’s zero discharge standard for fungicide discharge into the north fork of the Mad River. This water is used for drinking water and therefore Simpson’s sloppy standards result in pollution of our water supply.
Fallacy #2: Worker complaints of illness are not caused by the use of fungicides. Dr. Jay Davis, Simpson Timber’s contract physician told the North Coast View, according to a recent article, that worker complaints of flu-like symptoms caused by fungicides were probably in the workers’ own minds. He stated, “There’s always going to be people with various complaints. If they’re using things like fungicides they’ll attribute it to that. When someone gets flu-like symptoms during flu season, it’s probably the flu.”
Such a statement dismisses the experience of workers as uninformed and misguided, but workers’ empirical experience, such as Janet Chase, who noted that her flu-like symptoms disappear after being away from fungicide treated woods for three days and return when she returns to work contradict Davis’ rationalizations. Another unknown or ignored fact by Dr. Davis is that one of the first signs of lethal fungicide exposure is nausea and dizziness—ie, flulike symptoms.
Fallacy #3: The danger from exposure to fungicides is relatively slight when compared to other health dangers. Dr. Davis for example stated that Busan 1030 and TCP are “a lot less dangerous than tobacco smoke.” He adds that natural carcinogens found in peanut but-ter and other foods are far more dangerous than the fungicides used at Korbel.
While Dr. Davis uses the Ames test on natural carcinogens to support his argument about the relative safety of fungicides, he admits he doesn’t know that much about either TCP or Busan 1030. Moreover, Dr. Davis ignores the co-evolutionary process of human adaption to natural carcinogens versus artificial and new chemical carcinogens.
But of even more importance than this weakness is the legal implication of accepting Dr. Davis’ reasoning. For example, let us apply his reasoning to the case of a burglary of a person’s home. In this situation, the burglar is caught after he had broken a window in a person’s home and stolen a TV set. When he is being tried the person argues that his violence should be ignored because the damage he caused is relatively small when compared to the damage that would have been caused by natural forces like an earthquake or a tornado!
In conclusion, Simpson Timber asks us to ignore its disregard for workers and community safety because its actions don’t hurt anyone—at least not that much. Such an argument would justify a lot of criminal behavior that more than likely Simpson executives would not want society to tolerate if such crimes were directed at them.