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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 3/3/10

 

Students and community partner on

"Chemical Valley" film showing

 

On Thursday, March 11th, the West Virginia State University chapter of the Student Environmental Action Coalition and People Concerned About M.I.C. will co-present a screening of the Appalshop documentary Chemical Valley. 

 

Chemical Valley documents the Kanawha Valley’s response to the "Bhopal Disaster," otherwise known as the worst industrial disaster in history, which occurred on December 3, 1994 when the toxic gas methyl isocyanate (MIC) was released from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, killing and permanently disabling thousands.  This tragedy brought international attention to the predominantly African-American community of Institute, West Virginia, site of the only Union Carbide plant in the United States that manufactured MIC.  

 

While 25 years later the Institute facility is owned by Bayer CropScience, it still produces and stores more than five times the amount of MIC that caused the Bhopal disaster. The plant still operates right next door to West Virginia State University, a historically black and land-grant university.

 

Chemical Valley begins with the Bhopal disaster and the immediate response in the Kanawha Valley, an area once dubbed by residents "the chemical capital of the world" because of the many plants operating there. The program then follows events in the valley over the next five years as lines are drawn and all sides heard in the debate between those who fear for their livelihood and those who fear for their lives.  Chemical Valley explores issues of job blackmail, racism, and citizens’ right to know and to act as it documents one community's struggle to make accountable an industry that has all too often forced communities to choose between safety and jobs.

 

Chemical Valley was produced by Appalshop, a nationally recognized media arts center based in Whitesburg, Kentucky, and directed by Mimi Pickering and Anne Lewis.

 

The film will be on Thursday, March 11th at 6PM at the Davis Fine Arts Theatre on the campus of West Virginia State University.  Following the screening at 7PM will be a question and answer session to discuss the film’s relevance to the present time.  The event is free and open to the public, though donations will be accepted.  The WVSU Student Environmental Action Coalition is accepting old batteries as part of their recycling awareness campaign.  This screening is part of People Concerned About MIC’s education campaign.

For more information, visit www.peopleconcernedaboutmic.com.

 

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WVSU SEAC is the West Virginia State University chapter of the Student Environmental Action Coalition.  SEAC is a student and youth run national network of progressive organizations and individuals whose aim is to uproot environmental injustices through action and education. We define the environment to include the physical, economic, political, and cultural conditions in which we live. By challenging the power structure which threatens these conditions, students in SEAC work to create progressive social change on both the local and global levels.

 

People Concerned About MIC (PCMIC) is a community organization in the Kanawha Valley dedicated to the protection of health and safety of all who reside, work, and study in the vicinity of local chemical plants producing highly toxic chemicals. PCMIC was formed in the shadow of the Bhopal disaster, where thousands of people were killed and injured following a leak of the toxic chemical methyl isocyanate (MIC) at the Union Carbide facility in Bhopal, India, when community members learned that the same risks existed in the Kanawha Valley.



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Maya Nye, Spokesperson
People Concerned About MIC 
P.O. Box 45
Institute, WV  25112
www.peopleconcernedaboutmic.com
304-389-6859

***Smell something funny?***
Start keeping track of what happens when you smell something funny.  Visit www.peopleconcernedaboutmic.com/downloads to download your POLLUTION LOG.  Also, be sure to CALL and REPORT what you smell.  It may be the only way a problem is detected.  If you smell something, there IS a leak.  Call 24 hrs. a day 1 (800) 642-3074 then let us know you called it in.
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