"A Risk I Am Not Willing To Take"
East Palo Alto Youth Speaks Out Against Toxic Waste Company
By Dalila Adofo

Dalila Adofo, 13, has been a resident of East Palo Alto all her life.   She attends La Entrada.   She has 2 siblings. She is a youth organizer with Youth United for Community Action.

For as long as I can remember, I have always had asthma.   Just a month ago, I had an asthma attack that lasted for two weeks.   My life was put on hold –school, sports, doing community work.   Even walking to my friend's house was scary. I had to go to the hospital twice.   It was horrible, the worst experience of my life.   Imagine not breathing for two weeks, afraid to go to sleep because you might not be able to wake up, your mom being scared for you and waking up every hour to check on me.   I didn't want to go through that again – ever.

So when I heard about the chemical leak that happened at the chemical waste plant in my city called Romic, I was shocked and scared of having another big asthma attack.   I was scared to go outside because I didn't know if the chemicals had spread. Were they contained? I was scared for my family, and for the whole community, especially for the people who live closest to Romic.   For me, the scariest thing about the whole Romic incident was not knowing.  

Romic officials would have us believe that the chances of this accident are no different from driving down the freeway and being struck by a drunk driver.   Their Director of Operations said this at Romic's June Community Advisory Panel Meeting.   But to me, the drunk driver has options – don't get drunk, don't drive if you are drunk, or take your chances.   The question for us here in the community is: do we want to take that chance with Romic?

I think: No!    It's time for Romic to get out of here.   Romic has had a long history of violations including storing waste in unauthorized containers, combining incompatible hazardous waste that resulted in fires, accepting unauthorized waste, and failure to label hazardous waste containers with date of acceptance.   In 1995, Romic worker Rodrigo Cruz was sent to clean a railcar without proper training and resulted in permanent brain damage.   Just recently, Romic was placed under investigation by CAL-OSHA (California Occupational Safety and Health Administration) for a worker who suffered first and second degree burns.

In addition, Romic has operating off a state permit authorized by the DTSC (Department of Toxic Substances Control) that expired in 1991. Yet, DTSC allows them to operate, despite the fact that Romic has been in significant non-compliance with the state DTSC every quarter for the last three years.

We can't afford for this to happen to us.   We don't have to wait to act until something really bad happens to our community.   In the same week that the Romic incident happened, there were at least 60 hazardous incidents around the world.   Some of those incidents resulted in explosions, people getting sick and worse, people getting killed.   With our enthusiasm, strength and passion for our community, we should do everything we can in our power to shut Romic down.

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