National Nurses United

he fossil fuel industry, which includes corporations such as ExxonMobil, Shell, and British Petroleum, is one of the most destructive industries on the planet. The fossil fuel industry currently has identi- fied five times the amount of oil, coal, and natural gas in its reserves than scien- tists say is safe to burn and still preserve a livable planet—yet the industry plans to burn it all. And the processing of fos- sil fuels has many negative health impacts, as well. For every derrick, fracking drill, or oil refinery in operation, there is the likely contamination of nearby groundwater and air, causing medical disasters for communities exposed to these toxic chemicals. Asthma, lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, miscarriages, mercury poisoning, and other acute long-term health problems are found in high rates in communities located near fossil fuel infrastructure. Rolanda Watson is no stranger to the effects of environ- mental pollution on her patients' health. As a registered nurse who works in a clinic of the Cook County Health and Hospitals System near the South Chicago neighborhoods where, lit- erally, multi-story mountains of petcoke are stored without ade- quate cover, she witnesses how the black, sticky dust that covers every surface in the area prompts more, and younger, patients to seek her help for respiratory problems. Petcoke is a hazardous byproduct of the oil refining process. In 2013, after particularly strong winds kicked up such a large cloud of petcoke dust that it darkened the sky and forced residents and workers to stay indoors, Watson started organizing in earnest with her union and other reg- istered nurses to win environmental health justice on behalf of their patients. The petcoke piles belong to one of the Koch brothers' companies, KCBX, and originate from tar sands oil extracted in Alberta, Cana- da, harming the land and health of indigenous people. It then travels south to be refined and the petcoke byproduct dumped on the south side of Chicago. The entire process forms a toxic chain of environ- mental racism and exploitation of communities, perpetrated by the fossil fuel industry. When it comes to fighting for environmental justice, registered nurses see firsthand the harmful impacts of the fossil fuel industry on public health, on their patients, and on their own communities. For nurses, environmental justice activism is largely an extension of their patient advocacy. They advocate for their patients at the bed- side, but they also advocate for the health of their patients' commu- nities more broadly. 16 N A T I O N A L N U R S E W W W . N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 5 BY MINH TRAN T om Frantz, like his father and his father's father before him, has lived in Kern County most of his life. As a farmer in California's Central Valley, he has to ensure that the quality of the water he must use to hydrate his crops–which range from alfalfa to pistachios–meets federal regulatory safety standards. As a longtime resident of Kern County and communi- ty advocate, Frantz feels morally compelled to speak up about the longstanding, severe environmental problems pervading Bakers- field as a result of the fossil fuel industry's entrenchment in the city economy. On July 29th, Frantz hosted a number of NNU registered nurses and staff on a tour of Kern County's numerous oil derricks Up close and personal NNU nurses and staff visit Kern County T Dirty Money Nurses join in pushing employers to divest from fossil fuel industry. BY ALEXANDRA GRIFFIN +

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