Dioxin Dorms Blog :: SUNY New Paltz

THANK YOU to my friends who stood out in the chilly rain with me today outside Gage Residence Hall, speaking with student residents of the building: Beth Bagner, Jenna Dern, Priya Kale, and Roberta Gilgore. Thank you to Kristin Bentz, who worked a long day with us yesterday, greeting students and parents as they moved into the four contamianted dorms.

Thank you to Ray Bryant, chief of Univeversity Police, for initiating a dialog with me last week, and for making sure that our constitutional rights were protected.

Thank you to Steve Bergstein, the hottest civil rights lawyer for many miles around, for keeping an eye on us.

Thank you Anatoly Ryzhenko for building this website, night and day, for the past month. Thank you Deirdre Tanton and Danielle Voirin for producing the artwork and literature that are on this webpage and which went out to students. Thank you Tania Derck, my dauntless assistant in Brussels, for typing in so many of my old articles.

Thank you Ma Kettle — Carol van Strum — for bringing me into the tradition of the Northwest pesticide reform movement, and teaching me how to explain these issues in clear, direct terms. Thank you Paul E. Merrell, Esq. for 10,000+ pages of documents from the files of GE, Monsanto and Westinghouse, and for countless hours of patient instruction about PCBs and dioxins; and for explaining that the definition of “intent” is that the polluter knew or should have known they might cause harm.

Thank you Chelsea Bottinelli, the Planet Waves business manager, for helping me keep a grip, yet again, as I work on the New Paltz dorm issue.

Thank you Sandy Hess, the executive secretary to the college president, for catching all the flak that we have set flying.

I believe we have, at the least, begun a real discussion for the first time about whether SUNY New Paltz students should even face the slightest risk of exposure to deadly toxins in their living environment.

May that discussion continue to its logical conclusion.

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