Houston flood at Sherry Smith’s home.

DETROIT CONNECTIONS:  Jerry Bell, Jr.’s sister, family stranded in flood, have since been rescued

Jerry T. Bell Jr.

August 30, 2017

Sherry Smith

Family member

Bell family members

Please pray for my sister Sherry Smith and family members that are trapped in the Texas flood waters. I just got off the phone with her and she said that the water was pretty high up and that they were waiting for rescue. This is a photo that she sent to me. (See above.)

Update: l received a call from my sister in Texas. Both her and the kids have been rescued and taken to a safe location. Thank you for all of your prayers.

Jerry T. Bell, Jr. (r) with Kevin Kellom, father of Terrance Kellom, at vigil.

VOD: Jerry T. Bell Jr. is a well-known community activist in both Warren and Detroit.  He is currently challenging Warren’s racist districting policies and election requirements. His family was devastated in 2016 when his cousin Terrance Kellom, 19, was viciously executed by a multi-agency task force in front of his father Kevin Kellom and other family members. Jerry fought for justice for Terrance Kellom. He is also an accomplished hydroplane racer who has fought for years to get into the Gold Cup races on the Detroit River, dominated by white drivers and administrators. 

Can the politicians heed the lessons of Hurricane Harvey?

Posted August 30, 2017 (excerpted)https://blog.nader.org/2017/08/30/can-the-politicians-heed-the-lessons-of-hurricane-harvey/

Hovering Hurricane Harvey, loaded and reloading with trillions of gallons of water raining down on the greater Houston region—ironically the hub of the petroleum refining industry—is an unfolding, off the charts tragedy for millions of people. Many of those most affected are minorities and low-income families with no homes, health care or jobs to look forward to once the waters recede.

Will this tragedy teach us the lessons that so many politicians and impulsive voters have been denying for so long?

The first lesson is that America must come home: we must end the Empire of Militarism and of playing the role of policeman of the planet. Both of these habitual roles are backfiring and depleting trillions of taxpayer dollars that could be better used toward rebuilding our country’s infrastructure, strengthening our catastrophe-response networks and preparing for the coming megastorms like Hurricane Harvey. A projected trillion dollars being spent by Obama, and now Trump, just to upgrade nuclear weapons will only spur another arms race with Russia and China. This money could be more productively spent protecting Americans from immediate threats, such as natural disasters from man-made climate change.

Politicians must stop overstuffing a bloated military budget and leaving our country fiscally unprepared to handle mass epidemics and mass megastorms. In short, will they stop leaving our country defenseless against the prospects of huge levels of mortality and morbidity?

Houston residents make their way on foot through flood -where is the military now?

Second, Congressional and White House deniers of man-made climate disruption must renounce their dogmatic ignorance and confront the reality in the scientific warnings about the accelerating wrath of a provoked natural world.

Last month, I asked Oklahoma Senator James Inhofe—who has called climate change a “hoax”—what level of evidence would change his mind about climate change. He has not replied yet. But that is the question that should be asked of all Trumpsters, including the voters who share their disregard: Just what series of climate events  – what piles of scientific measurements and documentations now in the Arctic, the Andes, Antarctica, Greenland, the Maldives, etc. – could change their minds?

Third, our elected officials must accept that continuing to waste trillions of dollars on corporate subsidies, bailouts, giveaways and lack of enforcement of costly crime—crony capitalism—further weakens our country’s capacity to foresee and forestall omnicidal disasters.

Houston residents in shelter.

Enough, also, of the Congressional Republicans starving the IRS budget so it cannot collect more of the many billions of dollars in uncollected global corporate taxes. These Republicans don’t seem to connect the size of deficits, which they detest, with uncollected tax revenue, now estimated by the IRS to exceed $350 billion a year.

Maybe someone should finally write a book entitled “Listen, Voters.” It could start by asking why enough voters keep electing politicians, who sweet talk them, only hook up with corporations and an ideology of corporatism that adversely affects the very voters who put them into office, along with many other Americans. . . .

The August 29, 2017 Washington Post paused from its extensive coverage of the destruction in Houston to laud the “Flood of Courage” in its lead editorial. It wrote of the “massive – and inspiring – volunteer rescue response…With nothing more than their own courage, good people ventured into the rushing gullies and culverts, risking their lives to save others in the unrelenting rain.”

While Trump tweets and hopefully reconsiders his earlier cruel budget cuts for FEMA and other life-saving federal agencies – such as the Centers for Disease Control and the EPA – the people are swinging into action on the ground.

Texas, Louisiana under water: Capitalist crime scene

By Deirdre Griswold posted on August 29, 2017

Aug. 29 — The coasts of Texas and Louisiana have become an ongoing crime scene. The crime is against the millions of people living along the Gulf of Mexico as well as their property — and it is a crime against nature itself.

And who are the criminals? Some are the same politicians who, like Donald Trump, jump before the cameras to assure the public that everything possible is being done to protect them, when in fact the forces of government are doing the barest minimum.

PR PHOTO FOR TRUMP, HANDING OUT BOXED LUNCHES

Others shy away from publicity — like the multibillionaire oil and gas magnates who have amassed huge fortunes over the decades promoting the very technologies that have warmed the planet and made such disasters inevitable.

They undermined mass transit in order to promote the car culture. Once the drastic effects of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere became known, what did they do? As one science publication wrote in 2015: “Exxon knew about climate change almost 40 years ago — A new investigation shows the oil company understood the science before it became a public issue and spent millions to promote disinformation.” (Scientific American, Oct. 26, 2015)

In plain words, they lied to the people. And the people are those who suffer the consequences, not the very rich who can jet to wherever pleases their luxurious lifestyle.

Texas, oil and Gov. Abbott

The human toll of this continuing tragedy will not be known until the waters subside, if ever. Unprecedented rains keep falling, turning an area the size of South Carolina into a vast, muddy lake. Yet already Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is telling the people that this “is one of the largest disasters America has ever faced” and there will be “a new normal for this entire region.”

And who is Abbott? Just two months ago, he signed a resolution sponsored by the Texas Alliance of Energy Producers that urged the federal government to reverse “some of the harmful regulations that have stunted the growth of our industry.”

Victims of politicians’ de-regulation need to sue the oil and gas industries

The resolution applauds “the more than 20 lawsuits that Texas has filed in conjunction with many other oil and gas producing states against federal over-regulation that prioritizes minor environmental gains over major productive losses.”

“Minor environmental gains.” How ironic and telling that Hurricane Harvey, which has now dumped up to four feet of rain on parts of Texas and Louisiana since Aug. 25, is hitting the very states where the oil companies control the political structure lock, stock and barrel.

The billionaire owners of these companies should be behind bars — in the very jails that are now under water in Houston and other cities.

Scientists cannot say a particular storm is caused by global warming. There have always been hurricanes and floods. But they emphatically confirm that the increase in severe weather events now being experienced around the globe is caused by warmer temperatures.

NOAA handout: satellite photo of monstrous Hurricane Harvey

Did nobody see this coming? What about this article from the Washington Post, which appeared on March 21 of this year:

“Water temperatures at the surface of the Gulf of Mexico and near South Florida are on fire. They spurred a historically warm winter from Houston to Miami. … In the Gulf, the average sea surface temperature never fell below 73 degrees over the winter for the first time on record, reported Eric Berger of Ars Technica. Galveston, Tex., has tied or broken an astonishing 33 record highs since Nov. 1, while neighboring Houston had its warmest winter on record.”

The article predicted “intense thunderstorms” would follow. Indeed they have, and much more.

A dying social system

The cataclysm of global warming is a live-or-die test of the capitalist system, which puts profits for the ruling class before everything else. And there is no question that this social system is in critical condition. The proliferation of wars and “natural” disasters around the world attests to this fact.

Moreover, the seemingly unstoppable widening of the gap between rich and poor has reached the point in the U.S. where the richest 1/100th of 1 percent now account for almost all the gains in income..

Thousands of ordinary people — not the 0.01% — have volunteered their time and boats to help the people of the Gulf Coast escape the rising waters. It is commendable, but it also shows what is lacking: an organized, massive response to a disaster situation that requires planning and the allocation of great resources. That hasn’t happened.

Is it a problem of resources? Hardly.

Beginning in 2016, the U.S. government announced it would allocate a trillion dollars — $1,000,000,000,000! — over the next 30 years to “modernizing” the U.S. nuclear arsenal. It’s one of the projects begun under President Barack Obama that Trump has had no difficulty embracing. The Alliance for Nuclear Accountability called it the “Trillion Dollar Trainwreck,” adding, “This plan directly benefits the private corporations that are invested in the maintenance and production of nuclear weapons.”

Where are the trillions Trump promised to rescue Houston residents?

What this country really needs is not more nuclear weapons in order to impose imperialist terms on the rest of the world, but an all-out plan to combat global warming. That’s already responsible for so many deaths from hurricanes, heat waves, torrential rains, flooding, mud slides — and it is only intensifying.

The answer of the Trump administration? Pull out of the Paris Accords, which were weak to begin with, and deny that climate change even exists. The country that boasts of “leading the world” is the biggest drag on human progress.

The U.S. economy has way, way overgrown this profit-motivated capitalist system. The ownership and control of the vast means of production by a handful of billionaires are completely incompatible with a globalized economy in which the labor of hundreds of millions of workers contributes to the making and distribution of every product. Capitalism is a reactionary, self-destructive anachronism that must be shattered.

Socialized ownership of the means of production is necessary if we as a species are to take control of our destiny. We have the knowledge and the means to plan for an infinitely better world. What we need is a movement independent of the corrupt political machinery that has imposed the rule of the very few on the many.

Homeless man finds shelter from the storm.

Texas toxic waste sites flooded EPA not on scene

Jason Dearen and Michael Biesecker, Associated Press Published 5:33 p.m. ET Sept. 2, 2017 | Updated 6:03 p.m. ET Sept. 2, 2017 

In this Aug. 31, 2017 file photo, a barbed-wire fence encircles the Highlands Acid Pit that was flooded by water from the nearby San Jacinto River as a result from Harvey in Highlands, Texas.(Photo: Jason Dearen / AP)

 Highlands, Texas — As Dwight Chandler sipped beer and swept out the thick muck caked inside his devastated home, he worried whether Harvey’s floodwaters had also washed in pollution from the old acid pit just a couple blocks away.

Long a center of the nation’s petrochemical industry, the Houston metro area has more than a dozen Superfund sites, designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as being among America’s most intensely contaminated places. Many are now flooded, with the risk that waters were stirring dangerous sediment.

Dwight Chandler

The Highlands Acid Pit site near Chandler’s home was filled in the 1950s with toxic sludge and sulfuric acid from oil and gas operations. Though 22,000 cubic yards of hazardous waste and soil were excavated from the acid pits in the 1980s, the site is still considered a potential threat to groundwater, and the EPA maintains monitoring wells there.

When he was growing up in Highlands, Chandler, now 62, said he and his friends used to swim in the by-then abandoned pit.

“My daddy talks about having bird dogs down there to run and the acid would eat the pads off their feet,” he recounted on Thursday. “We didn’t know any better.”

The Associated Press visited seven Superfund sites in and around Houston during the flooding. All had been inundated with water; some were accessible only by boat.

EPA spokeswoman Amy Graham could not immediately provide details on when agency experts would inspect the Houston-area sites. She said Friday that EPA staff had checked on two other Superfund sites in Corpus Christi and found no significant damage.

“We will begin to assess other sites after flood waters recede in those areas,” Graham said.

At the Highlands Acid Pit on Thursday, the Keep Out sign on the barbed-wire fence encircling the 3.3-acre site barely peeked above the churning water from the nearby San Jacinto River.

A fishing bobber was caught in the chain link, and the air smelled bitter. A rusted incinerator sat just behind the fence, poking out of the murky soup.

Across the road at what appeared to be a more recently operational plant, a pair of tall white tanks had tipped over into a heap of twisted steel. It was not immediately clear what, if anything, might have been inside them when the storm hit.

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has called cleaning up Superfund sites a priority, even as he has taken steps to roll back or delay rules aimed at preventing air and water pollution. President Donald Trump’s proposed 2018 budget seeks to cut money for the Superfund program by 30 percent, though congressional Republicans are likely to approve a less severe reduction.

Like Trump, Pruitt has expressed skepticism about the predictions of climate scientists that warmer air and seas will produce stronger, more drenching storms.

close dialog

close dialog

Under the Obama administration, the EPA conducted a nationwide assessment of the increased threat to Superfund sites posed by climate change, including rising sea levels and stronger hurricanes. Of the more than 1,600 sites reviewed as part of the 2012 study, 521 were determined to be in 1-in-100 year and 1-in-500 year flood zones. Nearly 50 sites in coastal areas could also be vulnerable to rising sea levels.

The threats to human health and wildlife from rising waters that inundate Superfund sites vary widely depending on the specific contaminants and the concentrations involved. The EPA report specifically noted the risk that floodwaters might carry away and spread toxic materials over a wider area.

Jehovah’s Witnesses help clean out Houston home, protected against hazardous waste.

The report listed two dozen Superfund sites determined to be especially vulnerable to flooding and sea-level rise. The only one in Texas, the Bailey Waste Disposal site south of Beaumont, is on a marshy island along the Neches River. The National Weather Service said the Neches was expected to crest on Saturday at more than 21 feet above flood stage — 8 feet higher than the prior record.

In Crosby, across the San Jacinto River from Houston, a small working-class neighborhood sits between two Superfund sites, French LTD and the Sikes Disposal Pits.

The area was wrecked by Harvey’s floods. Only a single house from among the roughly dozen lining Hickory Lane was still standing.

After the water receded on Friday, a sinkhole the size of a swimming pool had opened up and swallowed two cars. The acrid smell of creosote filled the air.

Arkema Chemical Plant in Crosby, Texas burns.

Rafael Casas’ family had owned a house there for two decades, adjacent to the French LTD site. He said he was never told about the pollution risk until it came up in an informal conversation with a police officer who grew up nearby. Most of the homes had groundwater wells, but Casas said his family had switched to bottled water.“You never know what happens with the pollution under the ground,” said Casas, 32. “It filters into the water system.”

His neighbor, Mary Ann Avila, was sobbing as she surveyed her waterlogged home across from the sinkhole. She said officials had sent her a letter warning her to have her well tested. She said her family hadn’t had any health problems in the 17 years she’s lived there.

“Even the man that drilled our well drank from it,” said Avila, 39. “But we basically just bathe, wash our face and wash our teeth with it. But not drinking water.”

The water had receded by Saturday at Brio Refining Inc. and Dixie Oil Processors, a pair of neighboring Superfund sites about 20 miles southeast of downtown Houston in Friendswood. The road was coated in a layer of silt. Mud Gully Stream, which bisects the two sites, was full and flowing with muddy water.

Both sites were capped with a liner and soil as part of EPA-supervised cleanup efforts aimed at preventing the contamination from spreading off the low-lying sites during floods. Parts of the Brio site were elevated by 8 feet.

John Danna, the manager hired by the companies to oversee the sites, said in a phone interview that he went there after the storm and saw no signs of erosion. He said he didn’t know how high the flooding got in Harvey’s wake and that no testing of the water still draining from the area had been conducted. EPA staff are expected to visit in the next week, he said.

This Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017 photo shows the heavily polluted Patrick Bayou in the Houston Ship Channel that was flooded during Tropical Storm Harvey in Houston. The bayou, which sits next to a chemical plant in an intensely industrial area of Houston, is polluted with pesticides, hydrocarbons, metals and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Floodwaters have inundated at least five highly contaminated toxic waste sites near Houston, raising concerns that the pollution there might spread. (Photo: Jason Dearen / AP)

A security guard at the Patrick Bayou Superfund site, just off the Houston Ship Channel in Deer Park, said Saturday that flooding came hundreds of feet inland during the storm. The water has since receded back into the bayou, where past testing has shown the sediments contain pesticides, toxic heavy metals and PCBs. The site, surrounded by active petrochemical facilities, is still awaiting a final plan for cleanup.

San Jacinto Superfund waste site just across the street from this scene.

The San Jacinto River Waste Pits Superfund site was completely covered with floodwaters when an AP reporter saw it Thursday. According to its website, the EPA was set to make a final decision this year about a proposed $97 million cleanup effort to remove toxic waste from a paper mill that operated there in the 1960s.

The flow from the raging river washing over the toxic site was so intense it damaged an adjacent section of the Interstate 10 bridge, which has been closed to traffic due to concerns it might collapse.

There was no way to immediately assess how much contaminated soil from the site might have been washed away. According to an EPA survey from last year, soil from the former waste pits contains dioxins and other long-lasting toxins linked to birth defects and cancer.

Kara Cook-Schultz, who studies Superfund sites for the advocacy group TexPIRG, said environmentalists have warned for years about the potential for flooding to inundate Texas Superfund sites, particularly the San Jacinto Waste Pits.

“If floodwaters have spread the chemicals in the waste pits, then dangerous chemicals like dioxin could be spread around the wider Houston area,” Cook-Schultz said. “Superfund sites are known to be the most dangerous places in the country, and they should have been properly protected against flooding.”

Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, speaking with reporters at a news conference on Saturday after the AP report was published, said he wants the EPA “in town to address the situation.”

Turner said he didn’t know about the potential environmental concerns soon enough to discuss them with President Donald Trump.

“Now we’re turning out attention to that,” he said. “It is always a concern. The environment is very concerning, and we’ll get right on top of it.”

Associated Press writer Jay Reeves contributed to this report. Biesecker reported from Washington.

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred responds to a question Aug. 24, 2017 at the two-day meeting of Major League Baseball owners in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

By Douglas J. Gladstone

VOD Guest Column

Published August 30, 2017              

Tony Clark, Exec. Director MLBPA, during his days as a Detroit Tigers All-Star.

When he received the coveted Jackie Robinson Lifetime Achievement Award from the Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City last June, Tony Clark, the former Detroit Tigers All-Star first baseman who is now the executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association (MLBPA) – the first former player to ever hold that position, by the way — referenced a quote from the late Muhammad Ali.“Success is what you achieve,” said Clark. “Your significance is what you leave.”

That’s nice, isn’t it?

But talk is cheap. Just ask former Detroit pitchers Steve Grilli and Chuck Seelbach. Or retired second baseman Chuck Srivener, of Birmingham, Michigan.  Or Carmen Fanzone, the versatile utility player for the Cubs and Red Sox who grew up in Detroit and went to Cass Technical High School and later Central Michigan. 

Or Herb Washington, the former Michigan State track star who became the designate punch runner for the Oakland Athletics.

All are among the 500 retirees without (MLB) pensions.

For the most part, baseball players nowadays are set for life. Vested retirees are able to earn as much as $210,000; even the minimum pension for someone who played after 1980 is a reported $34,000.

Except for guys like Fanzone, Grilli, Scrivener and Seelbach. They only get $625 for every quarter of service credit of 43 game days they accrued, up to 16 quarters or $10,000.

Unlike a real pension, the non-qualified retirement benefit the pre-1980 retirees receive cannot be passed on to any of the players’ spouses, loved ones or designated beneficiaries; when the man dies, the payment dies with him.  Since they are not vested, these men are also not eligible to buy into the league’s generous health insurance plan, either. 

Threatened MLB Players strike.

During the 1980 Memorial Day Weekend a threatened players strike was averted when the late Ray Grebey, the negotiator for the league, made the following offer to the late Marvin Miller and Don Fehr of the players’ association — going forward, every player would automatically qualify for a pension after 43 game days of service, and he’d qualify for health coverage after only one game day.

The problem for all the pre-1980 players was the proposal was never made retroactive.

However, Ronald Dean, an employment benefits attorney who has argued cases before the State Supreme Appellate Court in California, is quoted as saying that “under ERISA it is perfectly permissible to make an amendment retroactive even if it then vests those who were previously unvested.” Even MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred concedes it can be done, but only in collective bargaining.

Atty. Ronald Dean

To date, the MLBPA has been loath to divvy up anymore of the collective pie. Even though Forbes recently reported that the current players’ pension and welfare fund is valued at $2.7 billion, Clark has never commented about these non-vested retirees, many of whom are filing for bankruptcy at advanced ages, having banks foreclose on their homes and are so sickly and poor that they cannot afford adequate health care coverage.

Clark is a widely respected, erudite figure. So it’s a head scratcher why he doesn’t want to go to bat for these men.

‘Cause if he did, he really would be leaving these men something of great significance. And that would be a nice achievement on his part.

Douglas J. Gladstone is the author of two books and multiple newspaper, magazine and webzine stories. He and his family reside in New York.

Related:

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/04/matrix-major-league-baseball-owners-asshole/

New policies will prevent prisoners from receiving court mailings, newspapers, magazines, books

Could deny constitutionally guaranteed access to courts

Further restricts prisoners’ access to families, outside world

Efren Paredes, Jr.

By Efren Paredes, Jr.

Published August 23, 2017

Today the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) issued a memorandum notifying prisoners and members of the public about new changes being made to the “Prisoner Mail” policy, PD 05.03.118, which should rattle the national conscience.

The changes will be strictly enforced beginning October 1, 2017. According to the memorandum, “Mail received that violates any of these regulations will be returned to the sender and/or rejected by the mailroom staff in accordance with PD 05.03.118.”

The following is the list of new regulations listed in the memorandum: –

• All mail must be received in WHITE envelopes only;
• No security features will be permitted. –
• Padded, cardboard, tear resistant, or similar envelopes will not be allowed. –
• Stickers of any kind, including return address labels, are prohibited. –
• Mail containing stains of any type, including but not limited to, perfume, lipstick, oily substances, water marks, body fluids, etc., are not allowed. –
• Only mail written in blue or black ink or lead pencil is permitted. Mail written in marker, crayon, paint, glitter, chalk, charcoal, or colored inks is not permitted. –
• Mail must not contain glue/paste or nontransparent tape of any type. –
• Greeting cards must be no larger than 6″ x 8″, single-fold, commercially produced with no embellishments, including but not limited to, cutouts, jewels, raised areas, etc.

Magazines like this are mailed out with address labels

The above list includes the most restrictive changes ever made to the MDOC “Prisoner Mail” policy. It appears that administrators are making a strong push to discourage the use of U.S. Mail to communicate with prisoners for anything other than sending letters, photographs, and legal correspondence, and encouraging people to use email (Jpay) instead.

Many courts, attorneys, book vendors, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and members of the public use address labels to mail letters to prisoners. According to the new memorandum all these examples of mail will qualify to be rejected. The new policy changes are going to create major mail backlogs at each prison because of this.

There are 41,000 prisoners in Michigan and tens of thousands of citizens who are related to or know prisoners who will be adversely affected by the new policy changes. It is impossible to notify everyone of the mail policy revisions in such a short period of time before the effective date of the changes.

It could also result in prisoners missing court filing deadlines and consequently denial of access to the courts. The MDOC allows members of the public to send prisoners email through their approved email portal which is www.JPay.com. The problem is there are limitations to the mail that can be sent this way and it is very costly, costing $0.20 per page. Document attachments also cannot be sent using this platform.

People who use www.JPay.com are required to set up an account and locate prisoners they would like to write by their prison number. For instance, someone trying to write me using the platform can do so by locating me on the web site with my prison number, “203116”. People can follow the same steps for sending emails to other Michigan prisoners as well, only they enter the prison number of the prisoner they are trying to contact. Letters and emails are vital to rehabilitation.

For families who cannot afford to visit prisoners or the exorbitant price of prisoner phone calls, letters and emails are the only form of communication available to them. It is the only way members of the public can find out how prisoners are doing and remain involved in their lives. This is especially true in the case of prisoners who have served many years behind bars.

It is important that people not allow the new mail restrictions to discourage them from communicating with prisoners. Letters and emails provide hope to prisoners and help them remain tethered to the outside world. In some cases it is their only connection. Mail is one of the most meaningful things in prisoners’ lives and I encourage readers to not reduce sending it.

You are encouraged to circulate this message with as many prisoner family members, friends, and attorneys possible to prevent them from sending prisoners any mail which may contravene the new pernicious MDOC prisoner mail policy restrictions and result in avoidable mail delivery delays. You are welcome to share this message via social media and email.

For those who may view this development as insignificant, I ask you to consider the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said, “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, and whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.”

Everyone will be impacted by the new changes at some point because of the persistent uncontrollable growth of mass incarceration.

(Efren Paredes, Jr. is a Michigan prisoner who is a social justice advocate, educator, and blogger. You can learn more about Efren and receive updates about his latest writings by visiting http://www.fb.com/Free.Efren or http://www.TinyURL.com/Efren1016.)

VOD editor: VOD has received a response to this article from Holly Kramer, the Communications Representative for the MDOC, published below. In our response to her, we asked that the clarifications she makes be sent out to all prisoners and their families as well, since the official notice as given to prisoners only contains the language in the story. VOD is aware of the fact that some prisoners have died from the results of drugs sent under mailing labels, although we have not been made aware of other factors Ms. Kramer cites until now.

 From Holly Kramer, MDOC Communications Representative:

I just saw this story and I wanted to take the opportunity to set a few things straight.

This policy only covers personal mail and does not impact legal mail or materials coming from publishers and approved vendors, such as newspapers, books or magazines, or other packages. It will not restrict prisoners’ access to the courts.

While these changes do impose more restrictions on incoming personal mail, they are in line with changes that have been made to policies governing personal mail at institutions across the country.

This was not done to discourage the use of U.S. mail to communicate with prisoners. The reason is, we have been seeing more people attempting to send contraband – particularly controlled substances like suboxone, concealed in personal mail. This is already an issue in our mailrooms, where staff are finding suboxone strips under labels and concealed with the use of colored paper, marker, crayon or other materials.

It is unfortunate that we have to institute changes like this because of those with negative intentions, but it is ultimately for the protection of prisoners under our supervision, as well as staff and visitors. 

When drugs enter our facilities there are a lot of negative implications, including the fact that it creates big issues for the safety and well-being of the prisoner who receives them, as well as others around them.

We have programs at our facilities to help prisoners overcome addictions they may face, and when prisoners gain access to drugs, it only undermines those efforts and can make their path to a successful life in the community more challenging. 

We agree with the writer when he says it is important for people not to let the new mail restrictions discourage them from sending personal mail, and it is indeed important for prisoners to stay connected to their support network, including family and friends.

We sent letters to prisoners and prisoner families, and made information on the change highly visible on our website because we want to give people ample warning and time to adjust to the new requirements before Oct. 1.

It is true that communication with others who can provide positive support to prisoners through letters, email, calls or visits is important for rehabilitation and success in the community. It is equally important for that communication to happen safely.

 Thanks, 

Holly Kramer

Communications Representative

Michigan Department of Corrections

206 E. Michigan Ave. Lansing, MI

O: (517) 335-3090

Parnall Correctional Facility prisoners at graduation from Jackson College

BY CORTEZ DAVIS EL

Cortez Davis El

VOD Staff Writer

Published August 22, 2017

In the early 1990’s the Michigan Department of Corrections removed all college programs from their facilities due to being underfunded. As a result of this cut, prisoners were not being educated beyond a GED or a Vocational Certificate. This lack of education left many men and women without the proper tools needed to reenter society and be productive. While it was known by many that education is the key to success, prisoners in Michigan were denied the chance to better themselves through educational enlightenment.

Many people saw this as a disaster waiting to happen. The question was asked by prisoners and their families, how do you expect for an ex-felon to gain footing on the outside when so many things are stacked against them? Many employers are reluctant to hire people with felonies on their record and without an education, obtaining meaningful employment would be next to impossible. With the absence of education in the prison system, the recidivism rate skyrocketed beyond anything imaginable. People were leaving prison with no skills or trades that would afford them access to the American Dream without the continued lapse of their moral compass. For so many, no matter how hard they tried to stay focused and live by society’s rules doors were continuously closed on them for being a felon and not having more of an education than a GED.

(CLOSE THIS VIDEO AT END OF STORY  ON COLLEGE FOR EX-OFFENDERS TO AVOID ONGOING CHICAGO CHANNEL 7 NEWS STORIES–tab at upper r)

This made some believe that their only option was a life of crime in order to make ends meet. When you are young, homeless, and hungry, survival and not dying are what you are focusing on. Your intent is not to hurt others or to take things that are not yours. You just want something to eat and or a warm place to lay your head. While difficulties in life are never excuses to commit crimes, being incarcerated should never be a reason to be denied an education and a chance at obtaining meaningful employment upon release. The Michigan Department of Corrections has rediscovered the value in educating its prisoners and has teamed up with various colleges to combat the emptiness of education among those returning to the community. Jackson College, Delta College, and Mott Community College are among those that are piloting college programs inside the Michigan Prisons to reduce recidivism among those that will reenter society.

The public is continuously being fed poison that negatively impacts their position on the importance of educating people in prison. Many claim not to see the need to educate the incarcerated while complaining about crime, higher taxes, and the closing of public schools that educate our children, in an effort to continue funding prisons that warehouse people instead of transforming their minds to grow and work for a maturing society.

Closed Southwestern High School in Detroit.

If you are one who believes that prisons are where society sends its failures and one day the worst of the worst will return to the community. Doesn’t it make sense to release them with the keys needed for success rather than the recipe for disaster?

Their success is a true benefit for society as a whole. They will contribute not just to the building of the economy, but also in crime prevention and the saving of our public school system. The colleges that are participating in this pilot program are owed a debt of gratitude from all parties that will benefit from the education of those that were once forgotten about. The prisoners that are blessed to be a part of this experience know that they are receiving a once in a lifetime opportunity. For many of them college was just a title that had little to know meaning to them.

“I am so excited to be going to college, this is something that I never thought was possible,” a student in the college program said to me. “Although I’m in prison, I am still the only person in my family that has ever attended college.” That statement is repeated by many and the sincerity that is behind those words shows that the men at the Thumb Correctional Facility are destined for success rather than continued failure. To sum it all up, educating the incarcerated should always be an important priority because it offers prisoners a real chance to contribute to society in a meaningful and realistic way. An educated person leaving prison has a greater chance at getting and maintaining employment that contributes to the building of social security and the economy.

The more people that leave prison with an college education increases the possibility of lower taxes due to not having to fund prisons for warehousing which now eats up over 20 percent of Michigan’s general budget annually.

Another benefit is the reduction of the crime rate and recidivism among parolees. This means safer streets for our children and seniors. Another very important benefit is the saving and rebuilding of the public schools which can also be tools in the effort to prevent neighborhood and street crimes, while shutting down the school to prison pipeline and restoring the public school to college pipeline. So how does education play a major role in the transformation of those that will one day return to society? You tell me.

NEW 4 YEARS AGO-NEVER CONNECTED; STILL SITTING IN WWTP BACKYARD; SPENT $30 MILLION OF BORROWED MONEY
The new 3rd 120/13.8 kV Transformer installed and owned by the Great LakesWater Authority waiting for the 3rd Primary Electric Feed Line to be installed and energized.

DWSD stopped work on WWTP 3^rd Feeder power project 4 years ago

Power outage of a few hours could be catastrophic in Delray, Springwells, Mexicantown; more than one week could fill region with untreated sewage

Poor communities will be targeted

Another Flint in the making?

By a Neighbor of the Wastewater Treatment Plant at 9300 W. Jefferson

August 16, 2017 

Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, hands on Detroit, shows how rest of 6-county DWSD region will be taken over by Great Lakes Water Authority, during bankruptcy proceedings Sept. 9, 2014

Don’t be too harsh on farmers causing algae blooms. Don’t overlook the impact of human waste.

To say, “We need a stronger mix of regulatory programs and better enforcement” is no understatement.

Read below of the shameful behavior of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) and the newly formed Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), operators of the Detroit Waste Water Treatment Plant (WWTP). 

Lake Erie and Toledo are directly down the Detroit River from the Detroit Waste Water Treatment Plant.

Currently, the Wastewater Treatment Plant services the needs of 35 percent of Michigan’s population contained within Detroit and 76 other communities in an area of more than 946 square miles.

The WWTP treats approximately 650 million gallons per day (MGD) of wastewater on average. In wet weather, the Plant processes 1700 MGD. 

[VOD: Since the takeover of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) by the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) in 2014, the GLWA operates, governs contracts, and receives revenue from all treatment and other facilities formerly operated by the DWSD.] 

Detroit and the GLWA have, for all practical purposes, ignored their obligation to add reliable Primary Electrical Power to the WWTP. Practical purposes means that today there is no additional operational Primary Power contrary to DWSD publications. Thirty million borrowed dollars have been spent to accomplish this unfulfilled commitment to add Power. The Project was arbitrarily and unilaterally stopped by DWSD four years ago when only 10% of the project remained to be completed. 

The chronology below shows a deliberate procrastination with damaging consequences downriver. The consequences of a sewage back up for a few hours will be catastrophic in Delray, Springwells, and Mexicantown. A power outage for a week or more could fill the streets of Detroit, Ferndale and beyond with raw sewage.

The Primary Power Project (AKA 3rd Feeder) was fully funded. Money was not an issue. The new power could have been up and running four years ago. This risk has been undisclosed and unknown to the general Public. Similar to the Flint water situation, a catastrophe can be easily avoided. This Electrical threat could be eliminated in 90 days if politicians are pushed by the electorate, especially in this election cycle. 

It is well known that those with little cash and little or no insurance will be in the most dire and desperate circumstances from a sewage backup. Those people are primarily the growing ranks of minorities, the poor, the elderly and children. These people will probably have no choice but to abandon their homes. Why, they ask, put us at such peril? The City of Detroit has offered Delray citizens free alternate housing to move out of Delray. Could it be that a few have agreed to implement a new form of Urban Renewal? This course of inaction could vacate entire neighborhoods.   Is this the creation of a new city plan?

“We need a stronger mix of regulatory programs and better enforcement as well as the actual use of the terms transparency and accountability.”

PRIMARY POWER AT WWTP DOWN FOR A COUPLE MONTHS – July 2017

Video above: DTE Plymouth substation explosion Aug. 17 left thousands without power. If this at happened at the Maxwell substation, the Wastewater Treatment Plant would be out of business, says story author.

The single source of electrical power to WWTP, a DTE substation named Maxwell, had a big failure in July.

Contrary to claims by GLWA regarding single sourcing, the statement that a single substation with two lines is redundant and complies with Michigan Department of Environmental Quality regulations is not totally accurate. 

One line went down with time to take remedial action – the questionable second line was fired up.

Cost of generators is same as cost to carry unfinished Wayne County Jail–$1M a month

There is no reliable backup for the second line and the 3rd Feeder Project was cancelled.

Consequently, Temporary Backup power was brought in via twenty 40 foot trailers with portable generators – The Plant could not rely on the existing on site generators as the Operators previously claimed.

The cost for the generators is approximately $1 Million  per month (the same as the cost to carry the defunct County Jail – Peter Paul and Mary could sing “ Where has all the money gone, long time passing”)

 The trailers have been on site for a couple months. Obviously, not a small repair.

If the outage was caused by an instantaneous event, such as lightning, both Maxwell lines may have gone down. They are only 130 feet apart.

 It took a great deal of time in good weather and without a real instantaneous crisis mode, without competition from other facilities for the same equipment, to locate nearly two dozen very large generators, mobilize, install, lay cable and switches, connect to existing hard wire facility, and avoid fire and injury. What if this happened by lightning in foul stormy weather? The Plant would be unsuccessfully trying to process 1700 million gallons per day. The backup on site generators cannot handle the load.

Of course the GLWA response will be tempered with the usual semantic trickery – Delay – Deny – Defend- Circumvent, then bring in the Ladies of ill repute, Misdirection- Misleading and Misinformation.

Fact – No portable generators would be required if DWSD completed the 3rd Feeder Project.

Upon close inspection it is evident that there have been a series of efforts over 20 years and by a multitude of “DWSD” entities to configure, argue, obfuscate and manipulate their way to an outcome whereby they would be permitted to rely on the supposed stable and omnipresent DTE Electric facilities and services that make ubiquitous, allegedly “reliable” electric utility service available to the public.  Simultaneously it was claimed in GLWA Public Meetings in September 2016 that the WWTP is vulnerable to power failure and there is no true redundant power,  and that if Maxwell goes down, the Plant will have no off site power. See http://www.glwater.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/AppendixB-Sewer-20170518.pdf.

1999

Typical basement sewage backup.

Nov. 21, 1999:  Kathleen Leavey, Deputy Director Detroit Water & Sewerage Department announced today, “The loss of our ability to treat and distribute potable water because of a power outage could have grave effects on the system. As for water, an interruption in pumping would create air pockets in the pipes that could permit pipeline contamination from groundwater. Sewage could back up into basements and surface waters. The consequences to the environment, our health and the machinery in our plants could be devastating.”

2009                                                                                                                                               

DWSD statement via Customer Outreach Portal: “upgrading an aging electrical system or backup power to this type of facility would have the highest priority due to the consequences of failure.”

2011                                                                                                                                                

Typical electrical substation.

Power failure on September 8, 2011 resulted in NPDES permit violation VN- 005096 by MDEQ. Service originated from a single electrical substation. At the time of power failure, DTE’s Maxwell A and Maxwell B substations were tied together, sharing the load for the WWTP.

The Edison Maxwell Electrical Substation, a single substation, remains in 2017 as the only source of Primary Power to the WWTP.

“In 2011, the worst year for algae on Lake Erie, there were 45 billion gallons of sewage overflows into the Detroit River to Toledo from the Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant,” wrote Jim Lynch of the Detroit News. An extended Primary Power outage would have pushed this discharge backwards to homes and businesses.

2014

DWSD has not figured out how to get from A to B.

DWSD stopped work on new Primary Electric Power Supply titled the “3rd Feeder,” (Contracts 1449 and 783), approximately 90% complete. The completed work cost $30 million borrowed funds, which included actual planning and building of a new transformer, a new building and related switches and ducts to accomplish this ‘mandated’ Electric Service. Despite this work scheduled in the Capital Improvement Plan, for nearly 20 years, DWSD has not figured out how to get from A to B.

The completed 90% of the project is similar to building a “Bridge to Nowhere.” DWSD partially built a necessary facility which does not meet the project objective – additional Primary Power to the WWTP. Required to complete the last 10 percent of the project is the connection of 3800 lineal feet of Primary Service Cable, on a relatively straight line, from the Edison Regional Power Grid, Point ‘A’, to the Treatment Plant, Point ‘B’.  That is the final 10% of the Project – “A to B”.

2014

Michigan Department of Environmental Quality Director Dan Wyant introduced a slate of initiatives aimed at reducing the amount of phosphorus Michigan contributes to Lake Erie. He said, “While the fertilizer and animal waste that runs off from large-scale farming operations correctly gets its share of the attention, human waste — mostly in the form of combined sewer overflows — is a major contributor to the algae problem.”

 9/19/14   

Karen Rae Boase, MDEQ Enforcement Specialist wrote this email:  

The third transformer has been installed on site and the electrical switchgear for the new transformer was installed and will be tested next week.  Before the transformer can be brought on-line, DTE will have to provide the electrical feed line to the WWTP.

Larry Young of Highland Park tries to clean out sewer on his street in Aug. 2014 during massive floods actually caused by shutdown of sewage pumps at Detroit Wastewater Treatment Plant.

“Michigan State officials say billions of gallons of raw and partially treated sewage were dumped in Detroit Area Rivers and streams after flooding from heavy rains earlier this month,” MDEQ spokeswoman Laura Verona told The Detroit News in Aug. 2017. She said that about 46 percent of the nearly 10 billion gallons of sewage released Aug. 11,2014 by water treatment facilities was raw, diluted or partially treated sewage. The 4.5 billion gallons of sewage would be the equivalent of submerging Detroit’s Belle Isle in about 14 feet of water”.

“Normally, the Detroit River looks blue,” said Bob Burns, a self-proclaimed Detroit river keeper, on Wednesday. “Now it looks brown because of the runoff and the sewage discharges.”

2016 September

GLWA meeting June 12, 2015: (l to r) co-chair Gary Brown of Detroit, chair Robert Daddow of Oakland County,  Board member Brian Baker of Macomb County, with maps showing areas covered by GLWA.

THE GREAT LAKES WATER AUTHORITY (GLWA) LEGAL COMMITTEE on Wednesday, September 14, 2016 at 11:30 am said,“this urgent 3rd power supply line to the WWTP needs to be installed at the earliest. The 3rd feeder from a different utility sub-station is required and this project will make WWTP’s primary electrical power supply reliable and redundant.” Presently there is no true redundant primary electrical service feed line to the WWTP.”

GLWA, which took over operation of the WWTP and every other facility that used to be run by DWSD in 2014, has ignored its own directive.

2017                                                                                                                                                    

No change since 2014.

3rd Primary Electric Feed Line needs to be installed and energized. Status Quo after nearly 20 years, the 2016 GLWA statement holds, “There is no true redundant power.”

The Detroit News reported that The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) said there have been 107 laboratory-confirmed cases of preventable liver disease in Detroit and Wayne… more than eight-times the number reported during the same time period last year. Two of those people died. The disease can be spread through contact with objects, food or water contaminated by feces.

Water contaminated by feces.

Health officials say the two people both came in contact with raw sewage that backed up into a basement. Some say that given the repetitive and calculated actions of the DWSD, the inordinate time involved (20 years) the millions of dollars (over 30 Million) spent and the enormous risk (power failure) that continues to exist contrary to published requirements and project schedules provided by DWSD, may constitute a technical or non-monetary default of financing. By the same token, since the consequence of a power failure has been known to DWSD and the means of remediation have been under the care, caution and control of the DWSD, and with budget money available, and the DWSD intentional cancellation of the final solution segment over three years ago, Insurance Providers may consider claims from a power failure as a ‘set up ‘and therefore are uninsured.

The cost of the last 10% project completion does not amount to a rounding error compared to the cost of sewage cleanup.

DTE Reports on Power Interruption

Reliability Performance and Power Quality Resolution Process DTE Electric Report for 2016

Causes of Forced Interruptions – Calendar Year 2016

Forced Interruptions by Cause / Percent of Customers Interrupted

Conditions                          Trees                     Equipment           All Other 

Catastrophic Storms       74.3%                    8.7%                     17.0%

Small Storms                      56.1%                    24.5%                    19.4%

Non-Storm                         37.0%                    34.3%                    28.7%

Reliability Performance and Power Quality Resolution Process DTE Electric Report for 2015

1710       2/21 – 1622 Navarre-River Rouge    PP Interruption          Line Equipment – Interference – Ice                                      

1711            2/21 – 1622 Navarre-River Rouge     PP Voltage             Sag Line Equipment – Interference – Ice

1712      2/21 – 1622 Navarre-River Rouge     PP Voltage              Sag Line Equipment – Interference – Ice

This information may help present a more balanced perspective of the Algae / Sewage Backup Problem in the future.

Exhibits Below contain confirmation for the observations discussed above.

https://outreach.glwater.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=6yVPiLzjJ_g%3d&tabid=39 – see CIP 366 & 1402

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/GLWA-CEO-Report-February-2017.pdf.)  Enter Search – WWTP then read “Do not drink the water’ & “Near catastrophic Failure”

http://archive.dwsd.org/downloads_n/about_dwsd/bowc/presentations/bowc_Sewer_FY_2016_Preliminary_CIP_2015-01-14.pdf – See Item # 10 pg 19 of 49 & Item #9 pg.30 of 40

http://www.glwater.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/091416-LEGAL-CommitteePacket-REVISED.pdf   Legal Committee / See New Business # 7 A Resolution of Necessity then scroll to pg. 60 thru 150

http://www.glwater.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/September-28-2016-Board-Packet.pdf Board /See New Business Item 8A Resolution of Necessity – then scroll down past pg 2 of Coffee Exhibit to “Motion”.

Related from Detroit Free Press

http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2017/06/19/detroit-sewage-plant-risk-power-failure/391801001/

Related VOD stories:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2017/03/08/do-not-drink-the-water-no-qualified-testers-in-detroit-glwa-crises-cause-ongoing-contamination/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/11/08/layoffs-flood-detroit-water-dept-risk-public-health-rising-debt-higher-rates-more-shut-offs/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/06/16/authority-approves-bankruptcy-theft-of-detroits-water-system-retirees-begin-referendum-campaign/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2016/02/15/bi-partisan-deal-led-to-flint-water-poisoning-for-profit-the-karegnondi-water-authority-kwa/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/08/21/near-catastrophic-failure-of-detroit-sewage-pumps-caused-detroit-floods-toledo-water-crisis-city-retirees-say/

Related from VOD:

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2017/06/14/restitution-not-eviction-peoples-forum-to-stop-unconstitutional-tax-foreclosures-sat-june-17/

 Below: videoes of Prof. Bernadette Atuahene’s riveting presentation on tax foreclosures in Detroit, the highest number in the history of the U.S., at forum June 17, 2017.