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Statement Of Michele Petty
Environmental Protection Agency
Aging Initiative Public Listening Session
San Antonio, Texas
April 8, 2003
San Antonio Global Renaissance Alliance
This is my mother Ruth Petty. {Speaker shows photograph) She died in October because she couldn't breathe. She worked for more than twenty years out at Kelly Air Force Base, a kind of a poisonous place to work. A lot of people have been asking the EPA "What are you going to do to clean up Kelly? What are you going to do about Kelly?" So far, all we have heard is silence. My children drink water from the Glen Rose aquifer. We are concerned about the hazardous waste that has leeched into the Glen Rose and the Trinity aquifers from Camp Bullis. Really nasty stuff is stored out there and the storage was not contained properly. There is a significant plume in those aquifers and it is headed toward San Antonio's primary drinking water supply, the Edwards aquifer. People can pretend the plume is not going there but, yes, it is going to contaminate our drinking supply in San Antonio. That will affect everybody, not just seniors. As an attorney, representing some victims in toxic torts, I had the privilege of knowing a man named Jimmy Reedis, who worked for Dow Chemical and was exposed to toxic emissions there. After suffering for six years from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, he died. I had the privilege of knowing Mr. Burgess, who died of brain cancer from exposure to pesticides while working at Worldwide Pest Company. I knew the Lopez family, who husband died working for Champlin Petroleum Company and being exposed to benezene and toluene. These are very serious things. My godmother could not be here today. She is almost 80 years old with not a wrinkle on her face. She is now on oxygen 100 percent of the time. Two nights ago, her machine malfunctioned and she is very, very sick. I asked her what would she like me to say today. She said: "Tell the EPA please don't rollback the regulations. Please enforce the rules. Tell them that quote from John Dunne." And then she quoted, straight from her heart, she knew it, while I had to look it up. The quotation is: "No man is an island unto himself. Don't ask for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee." We are about to lose my godmother. Don't discount her value to society. The Global Renaissance Alliance asks the EPA to be the watchdog that you all were intended and created to be. Please take a bite out of corporate polluters because grandfathering industrial polluters is really going to kill our grandchildren. Thank you very much.