Ben Figueroa – Texas Legacy

TRANSCRIPT
INTERVIEWEE: Ben Figueroa (BF)
INTERVIEWERS: David Todd (DT) and David Weisman (DW)
DATE: February 23, 2000
LOCATION: Kingsville, Texas
TRANSCRIBERS: Lacy Goldsmith and Robin Johnson
REEL: 2079 and 2080

Please note that videos include roughly 60 seconds of color bars and sound tone for technical settings at the outset of the recordings. Numbers mark the time codes for the VHS tape copy of the interview.

DT: My name is David Todd. I am here for the Conservation History Association of Texas. It is February 23, year 2000. We are in Kingsville, Texas. We have the good fortune to be talking to Ben Figueroa about his work trying to confront a uranium mine and radioactive waste disposal site in the Kingsville area. I want to thank you for spending time to explain that whole issue.
0:01:48 – 2079
BF: It’s good to be here.
DT: I thought we might start by talking a little bit about your background, where you were raised, your schooling and career, and so on.
0:02:01 – 2079
BF: I was raised right here in Kingsville, Texas and in this rural community and went to school here. We have a small college and I got a graduate degree in psychology and history. And spent a little time in the Navy in Vietnam and spent some time in corporate America away from here and I got tired of that and I came back home to make a difference, and I think I have.
DT: You run a foundation here?
0:02:33 – 2079
BF: I run a foundation, yeah, I—I spent, actually, I spent twenty years developing a Human Services Department for our local county and very few services were available in this rural community. So what I did was, I came back and started developing grant programs and I did. For a small county and per capita, I developed quite a bit of money and—with and an annual budget sometimes reaching three million for human services, which is quite a bit, and in some years, it went beyond that. So, I did that for about twenty years.
DT: In recent years, I guess some of your community effort has turned towards environmental work?
0:03:10 – 2079
BF: Well, during that time, I—I—I stumbled into an environmental problem that occurred here in the county, and—and that’s when the uranium people came to mine uranium in Kleberg County. We didn’t know there was uranium here, but they said that—that there was a very large pocket of uranium. So, in the beginning, I think that—that we were somewhat concerned just because it was uranium and knowing about radioactivity and knowing what—what it can do in Japan, and the bombs and all this kind of thing. And, so we got concerned and they came in and they published a public hearing. And—and, actually, my wife is—is the environmentalist, and most of what I know about, you know, biology, comes from her. She was a biology teacher and then became a principle, but an—an environmentalist at heart. And my interest, I guess, is from a humanistic point of view, you know, just human life is—is precious and important. So, we went to the public hearing that they had, that they were required to—to hold a public meeting, so to speak, talking about uranium and how harmless it was. So immediately, we—we saw some problems and the—the opportunity to ask for a public hearing came up and, as citizens living in this community, we requested a public hearing. And so we started looking into what they were doing, a—a phenomenon called in situ mining, which is a reverse osmosis type system and—and we—we started looking at all the—the parameters of what they were doing and found many, many flaws. There were no guarantees. We also found that the state agency that managed this entire system let them mine based on models, there’s no concrete evidence that anything worked, really. It was just models. So, we—we requested that they not mine immediately. And, in the beginning, we had community support and—and, because I had been involved in local government and politics, something happened. In the beginning, everybody was asleep about uranium and then, all of a sudden, they saw us walk up, you know, who is Ben, and who is Edna, just citizens, and we stopped it.
0:05:46 – 2079
BF: So they immediately turned to the powers that existed here and turned it around considerably. And we found out that politics works very well in Texas, all the way up to Austin. And we started loosing our—our rounds in terms of public hearings. The—the public was not involved because they couldn’t understand the technicalities of—of uranium mining and—and what it meant, and what it meant to our—our ground water. In fact, people didn’t even know that we had a—a sole-source ground water supply and that it was—many people thought it was endless, you know, we’re—we’re going to have water till the end of time. And we started explaining that, no, it doesn’t last, that we’re using it up. We had a cone of depression under Kingsville, and today, the Corp Of Engineers claims that—that, no—no, that the—the core depression isn’t—isn’t that bad, and—but at one time, they did. You know, who’s right and who’s wrong? But there is a cone of depression under Kingsville because of the water usage. And, of course, now we have something called the South Texas Water Authority that—that is a supplement, it supplies us about 20 percent of the water that we use in this community. But, still, this—this cone of depression means that we were using water faster than it was being created, and created through a discharge zone. And, you start learning about the processes of ground water and—and I did. I started learning about it, more so my wife knew a lot about it. And—and the—the formula is very basic. We’re using it faster than we—than nature can produce it.
0:07:29 – 2079
BF: And then on top of that, we had a uranium mining company that said, “We’re going to use this ground water, bring it out, bring the uranium out, develop this yellow cake, and then pump it back in and nothing’s going to happen”. Just that simple. And we said, “No, that’s not what’s going to happen”. And—and today is—is proof—if you talked to the, I think it’s called the Texas Water Development Board these days, instead of the Texas Water Commission, I think, they’ll—they’ll say that, no, they’re on target. The baseline parameters that—that they set are—are in place, and—and I don’t think that they are. In fact, the—the STOP [South Texas Opposes Pollution] Group that—that is now in place that’s fighting uranium, has—has already proven that those baseline parameters are not the same. In other words, we—when—when they came here, they tested the water and there was, there was so much, there were so many elements in it. And—and if you test the water today, it’s different. And they’re saying that it’s cleaner, and, of course they would say that. And, no, there is proof that—that it isn’t. So, you know, you—you start, you start fighting this tough of war, who’s right and who’s wrong. Testimony after testimony, we showed other sites that have, that were ruined. Panna Maria was ruined to no end, and other sites in Texas, and—and in other places in the United States. And still they said, “No, in situ uranium mining osmos—reverse osmosis works, it works”. And, to this day, I don’t think that I can believe that, and I think it’s more important that we don’t fool around with uranium when we don’t know what we’re doing. And—and then the question comes up economics and nuclear power. All right, we need to utilize some of this material. But if we don’t know how to utilize it perfectly, then we shouldn’t mess with it. You know, find a way, and—and then mess with it. But, if you don’t know and you’re using models, and these models have failed in the past, and we knew that, then why are we continuing, why is the state allowing this? And, that’s what we found out.
0:09:44 – 2079
BF: And the politics that—that—that played a part in this were very, very strong. We have a—a large ranch in our backyard. That ranch supported the uranium mining, the second round, not the first round. And—and many times I’ve heard the—the descendents of Captain King say that they were concerned with the environment. Well, you can’t be very concerned because uranium mining was the ultimate slap in the face to our environment here. We’ve been—they’ve been drilling for oil here for years and we’re surely not going to stop that, I mean, you know, you’re trying to stop oil, you’re going to stop, you know, transportation. And we already knew to—to some degree that—that the oil drilling and the fact that the rules were not in place in the early days to protect the environment, that that did a lot of damage to the water, to—to the environment in general. I—I’m not going to talk about the daughter products that float through the air, that cling to organic matter and those that cling to non-organic matter, but—but the—the ranch took a stand in favor of the uranium mining company. And I think that’s what really did us in, because we were just, my wife Edna and I, were just two people trying to educate the public about this phenomenon. And—and I—I’m not going, not going to go into the demographics of Kleberg County, but it’s a—a rural community, even though we have a college and there’s a—probably a—a higher average of college graduates in this community, the college community, the ones that were involved in geography, were hired by the—by the uranium company to do the consulting work for them. So, we had a contingency of some professors that said, “No, it’s great”. So—so, we had the college community. And then the other ones, I suppose, the—the historians, and the—the English prof’s, they just kind of sat back and watched it. And then it was—that’s the intelligent part of the community.
0:11:51 – 2079
BF: The re—remainder of the community is—is the—well there’s two—there’s two communities, an Anglo community we’re—we’re bi-cultural, and segregated, in fact. There’s an Anglo community and a Mexican community. And, both communities were unaware of what was happening with the uranium and we were asked many, many questions, “How do you know?” And we brought up a lot of questions. So, I—I feel that in, historically, we educated some people about uranium and—and the consequence of that is the STOP Group. At some point after we fought for, oh beginning in about 85, even earlier than 85, 82, and then some—at some point around 92, 93, some other people got involved, some local ranchers, farmers, that became very concerned and formed the STOP Group. And—and I think that’s the consequence. And—and now we’re facing restoration, water restoration. And there are questions being asked. The state is saying, “Well, there’s nothing wrong with the uranium company, they put up enough money in case we have to restore the water, in case the water is contaminated, but they’re still in operation so we cannot say, well, we—we cannot discount them and say we’re—they’re out, we’re going to start res—restoring, because they still have permits in place”. I—I’m—I’m going to refer back to the Panna Maria site. We waited too long and—and I’ve seen some—some documentaries regarding the—the effects of what happened there. And then if you go up to George West, I think he was U.S. Steel, that—that could not clean up a uranium mine in—in George West, I—I’m—I’m not sure if it was U.S. Steel or Union Carbide, one of those companies, that—that mined up there. If you go up to Kennedy, now that is cancer USA. And that’s the—the uranium capital of Texas and cancer rates, according to Department of Health, are higher up, way above the average. And, is—is that what we want to—to look forward to in Kleberg County because we—we didn’t take a stand?
0:14:05 – 2079
BF: I think that, what we did was, we cleaned up the process considerably. The parameters were tightened up because of the consistent inquiry that we had as citizens. And—and, in spite of the politics, and I can remember going up there and there was a Commissioner Loomis and Commissioner Hubert, not the current commissioner, but his father, and ourselves went up, and we were sitting before the—the Texas Water Commission, and there was, like, my wife and myself, and these two commissioners on one side of the room, and you looked across, and half of the King Ranch was there. And the uranium company was there. And, you know, they had, like 25 people, and there’s three members on the Water Commission. And, we’re looking—we had one—one advocate, her name was Savanna Robinson, an environmentalist attorney that was on staff, and she fought hard, she fought hard. She said, “This permit has holes in it”. And, I’m not going to explain the politics of who the Governor was, but that—that plays a part, who was in power, and it was two to one. They were at two to one to—to allow the permit because the—the—the politics reached all the way to Austin from here.
DT: Can you explain a little bit more about the politics, it seems like a lot of times these decisions are more political than technical.
0:15:27 – 2079
BF: Right. What happened was that in, like I mentioned before, the first round, it was too new. The uranium company came in here, they had not joined the Chamber. Our local Chamber, you know, just jumped, took the dive, you know, like the—the lemmings going towards the—the cliff, you know, and falling out, you know. And they took that dive, said, “Look, we need—we need the jobs, we need the economics of it”. And, I don’t know that, over the—over the past few years, they claim so many jobs they—they did produce some jobs. They didn’t produce what they claimed to have produced in terms of taxation, mineral taxation, although they claim that they were going to do wonders in terms of, you know, producing taxes for—for the county. And, some of the, some of the jobs—the jobs varied. Sometimes they had 16 employees, sometimes they had 5 because the price of uranium governed that. So, it wasn’t an industry that was necessarily consistent in terms of a clean industry coming in with 100 jobs and—and keeping 100 jobs, you know, year one, two, three, four, five, and this is a span of ten years. I don’t know that they ever reached over 20, I can’t say that, but I—I didn’t see the imp—the economic impact that they claimed that they were having in terms of jobs. A couple of people visited us during that time that they were violating the rules because some of those poor individuals that were hired, are—are not professional individuals, they’re not even uh—uh skilled, they’re just lay people that go out there and—and work. And they didn’t have their—their radiation control badges on. And there’s a lot of, there’s—there was a lot of hearsay about the—the operation back and forth. Some of the farmers were testing the water and claiming the water’s not right. They had drainage during the rainy seasons, and it doesn’t rain that much, but when it did, you know, the overflow caused some problems. So, we went through—through many years of—of this type of—of back and forth and the politics of it.
0:17:44 – 2079
BF: Immediately, when—when—when they joined the Chamber and they infiltrated the Chamber, the Chamber became adv—an advocate agency for the uranium. And you can imagine, we’re not Chamber members, we’re just individuals paying our taxes out here, belonging to nobody. No interest group, there was no—no designation given to us other than, oh, may—maybe there—there was. We were called, “radical”. We were called—”environmentalist” was a dirty word here, “trouble makers”, “wanting to ruin our economy”, things of this nature. We—we went through a series of public hearings where we fought hard and, in fact, some people just, not knowing what was going on, kind of sympathized with us, I think, because they told us, you know, “We know that you’re going through all this stress and we really sympathize with you, but we don’t understand it”. And—and I think what they were saying is, “We don’t know whether you’re telling the truth, or they’re telling the truth, or, we just don’t understand it, you know, and—and, but we’re glad that you’re asking questions”. And—and, the—the public, in general, was telling us, “We’re glad you’re there, we’re glad you’re doing this”. We just ran out of steam after about ten years of fighting the issue and we traveled to many places. We went to Washington and did a lot of, tremendous amount of research. And some of that research is documented at the, at the state level because we submitted report, after report, after report that, actually my wife put together. And, what it did, I think, it did cause some, create some awareness in terms of the public, they understand that—that uranium can cause cancer. And, although the uranium people claim that it doesn’t, they said you can, they even—they even brought an example up. I remember they brought a—a watch that glowed in the even—at night, and they said, “Look, this has these ingredients and it’s—it doesn’t cause cancer. You’re wearing it, they use these things, you’re wearing around your wrist, and your—your wearing it, you know, everywhere, you see it everywhere”. And exposure, they were talking about exposure. And, we said, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. We’re not talking about wearing a wrist watch, we’re talking about our ground water”.
0:20:11 – 2079
But they were good at that, and, politically, coming back to the—to the Texas Water Commission, I think it was the—the tentacles of the strong King Ranch corporation that we have here that reached all the way to Austin, they are very powerful, and—and they were able to pull the right strings. I mean, let’s face it, that we live in a political world and—and they had the politics on their side. In spite of that, in spite of knowing that—that they had the political power, we realized that, after the second hearing that we lost, in spite of that, we had a couple of commissioners that stuck with us and—and wanted to fight the uranium company. And the county also spent a lot of money on consultants and they took an active role. And right now, one commissioner that—that is gone now, he lost, he—he retired, that was with the ranch, is no longer there, when that changed, the county took a little more aggressive role. And right now, they—they’ve helped the STOP Group considerably. I kind of feel like we—we started all that. It was a battle, a continuous battle, and it hasn’t ended. On occasion, we go to a meeting, we’re invited, and I know when Stop first got together, we got together with them to give them the background of what had occurred since, like 1982 up until about 1992 when they started picking up the pieces there. And right now, they’re—they’re right on top of it. They’re right on top of restoration. So I kind of feel that that was an outgrowth of all that—that we did in terms of public hearings and trying to educate the public and—and fight this—this process that it’s so easy to get this licensing process that—that’s available to the state based on models, not based on—on some actual information, you know.
DT: Can you talk a little bit about that process?
0:22:18 – 2079
BF: This—these models these—what they do is—is, they experiment with a model. They take, it’s like an extraction, you know, from—from the field and set up a small model. And—and in many cases, the model is on paper, or—or it—it’s done in small quantities and they say, “Look, here’s what we can do with this—with this amount of water”. And then they take this model and say; “This is what we’re going to do with it in the environment in a large scale”. Well, sometimes that model is just on paper and it hasn’t been proven. So they go through a process of—of mining and saying, “Okay, we’re going to monitor these water wells and make sure that the—the levels, the water levels are still the same”. We had a hard time getting that kind of material, that feedback, from the state. First of all, they don’t have a very good system of policing mining sites. They would come out, they would test the water, and back and forth with—with different—different types of information in terms of what they obtained and what the company obtained, and what a farmer obtained, and there was just—just, none of it correlated. And I don’t know that there was ever, I—I’ve never read any proof that, yes, that we—our water is as clean as it was before they got here. And—and they’ve asked for that material. And, maybe the STOP Group has—has received some of that material, but, we do know that—that they are not the same baseline levels when they started. The water is—isn’t. So, you know, it’s like anything else, if you start messing, if you start pulling uranium out of the water, once it hits oxygen, it’s going to do all kinds of different things. They cannot tell you all the different things that it’s going to do, it’s just, it’s too much.
DT: Did you get any technical help understanding these problems?
0:24:23 – 2079
BF: We—we—we—we obtained technical help from some people, people in Austin that, the county hired some technical people, people that Jeff Sibley(?) had contact with in Austin, so we did get some help. And—and—all the help that we got pointed towards the fact that they were going to pollute our water, so we kept fighting, trying to stop, we wanted to stop the permitting process. We didn’t want to let them mine uranium, go mine it somewhere else, basically. And—and, you know, there—there’s an argument, well, you have to mine uranium to—because of nuclear energy in the future and this and that, so well that’s fine, we could—we can do that, but let’s—let’s get it nailed down first, and it’s not nailed down. Reverse osmosis is, I mentioned that it was labor intensive, it’s—you have to have people out there if the systems break down. Yellow cake is not contained, that’s the powdery stuff that uranium if formed into. That gets into the air, there’s no controls for that. If it—if some of this stuff travels through the air, I—I need to mention something called daughter products, bi-products. And some of these elements have half lives of 50,000 years, you know, things of that nature. And—and we have a south-easterly here and all that material is floating in the air towards us, and we can, we—we’ve sat at many public hearings saying, “We’re breathing this stuff, and you cannot contain it absolutely and you’re telling us that it’s not going to affect us 20 years from now? How can you tell us that? You can’t tell us that”. You cannot, actually they could not tell us, “You’re not going to cause cancer in our community 20 years from now”. They cannot tell us that, but they tried. And they got permitted.
DT: What were the responses from the company when you would have these concerns.
0:26:26 – 2079
BF: They came back and they said that—that—that there are certain levels that—that the Texas Water Commission had set up that were, you know, these—this amount of uranium floating through the air was not dangerous. And they have, you know, to have a whole permitting process that says, “If you don’t go above these levels, your okay”. In other words, you start with water at a certain level, and it does have these elements, and they’re saying, they give you this much of a gap and say, “You can pollute it this much and you’re okay. It’s when you pollute it this much that you’re in trouble”. Come on, you can pollute it so much and you’re not in trouble? You can’t convince me of that. We’ve had too many people die of cancer, young people, in Kleberg County; we have a high rate of cancer, according to the Department of Health, in this region. And, probably, some of it comes from the oil business, not just uranium, you know. And—and the company has been here since the 80’s, you know, we’re going to be hitting that mark where the uranium will start having an effect. But, probably, the oil industry had an effect on the environment already because our—our cancer levels are above the above. So we know that it’s having an effect because of oil. And, some people say well, “Why don’t we fight the oil?” Well, that’s another, that’s another story, that’s another battle, and I guess we would have to spend the rest of our lives fighting those permits, you know, because they’re continuous, they’re always mining for oil.
DT: Speaking of permits, did you have much dealing with the agency that issues these permits, I guess this is now called Texas Natural Resources.
0:28:08 – 2079
BF: It is called TNRCC. We had a poor experience and I’m not going to blame staff up there. They were under-staffed. The Bureau of Radiation Control, that was another bureau, Department of Health. The Senator was—was successful in—in—in affecting the person that ran the Bureau of Radiation Control at one point in our history, because I think he was just terrible, just the most terrible person that you could—you can begin to imagine. But, I think that he had an effect on that and some—some changes had to be made and he made them. He was chairman of—of the subcommittee on the radiation control. But, I think that you get people in place and—and, I walked into Vic Hines’ [Senator Truan’s aide] office once, [State] Senator Truan’s offices in Austin, and I walked in like I normally walked in, you know, even today, and there was about, you know, eight guys and they were from an uranium company and they were lobbying the Senator, you know. And, you know, and this—this must be great because the company’s got all this money to send lobbyists up there but—but I don’t, I can’t—I only make it up there once or twice a year, you know, and I go knocking, and said, “Vic, can we talk a little bit about the environment, the—the—the canaries are dying, you know, I think we need to do something”. And these guys are up there, you know, during the session, they—they live there. I can’t compete with that. As a person wanting to help the environment, I cannot compete with the amount of money that they’re putting into the system and—and all that they did to lobby for these permits. It’s just impossible. The system is not set up for—for citizens really to access it. We accessed it, but to a degree only. We did not have the political pull, we did not have a political interest group, we did not have a—a group that could infiltrate the Chamber or infiltrate the Economic Development Council or—or City Hall. What we did have, was a couple of sensitive commissioners that were on our side. One was a farmer, one was a barber, and they didn’t really care about corporate America, they cared about people.
DT: These were county commissioners?
0:30:28 – 2079
BF: County commissioners. And the county judge W.C. McDaniel was also helpful during those times. He was more of a mediator, but he was very much of an environmentalist himself, but he mediated much more than these two other commissioners did and they were gung ho. They said, “We’re not going to let this happen if we can help it”. But that’s two out of five. Again, I mentioned that the judge was a mediator, so sometimes, he voted one way and sometimes he voted another way. But they did spend—the county did spend a lot of money in hiring a consultant. We went through public hearings and through—through a lot of money trying to help the citizens. And today, I think that there’s a couple of commissioners that probably are on the uranium side and maybe there’s—there’s three votes in favor of the citizens. So you have to have that in place and that wasn’t in place when we got started. And they didn’t really know what—what to do because, you know, you take county commissioners, and all of a sudden you bombard them with reverse osmosis issues and ground water issues, what—what’s this about, you know. You know, you’re going to have to tell us—me in a nutshell, and you tell them in a nutshell, and they say, well, I need more information, you know. And that’s difficult to do. And so it took years and years and—and I think today, the public is still in the dark about these types of issues. And—and, you know, I—I—we watch a lot of The Learning Channel and Discovery and, thank God for those things, because I think they’re—they’re bringing more of these issues to the forefront but—where before, you know, this information was not available.
DT: Could you talk about how the public would respond if you went up to Joe Blow on the street and tried to describe what the problem was, what the reaction would be?
0:32:26 – 2079
BF: When I—way back then, I think that they were just astounded at what we were saying in terms of the cancer issue, the health issues. I think people are health conscious, but they weren’t necessarily knowledgeable about what uranium did—could do, in—in the open environment, what happened, the process of, you know, you’re sucking it up out of the ground and then it’s coming and hitting oxygen and daughter products and things of this nature, it was too much for them. These are people that are lay people, that are out here, you know, trying to live a life, and they were very glad, I think, that many times people said, “We’re glad that you’re concerned, we’re concerned about our environment”, they just didn’t understand it. I think if you went out today, the same thing would happen. It’s kind of like asking somebody, you know, “Do you remember who the 16th President was?” You know, somebody’s going to say, “Oh, Tom Horner, you know, I don’t know”. You know, they—they’ll name you several people because people are just not concerned about those things. And—and the environment is—is one of those issues. I think it’s—it’s more important now than it was ten years ago and twenty years and we keep going further back. But—but people are not knowledgeable about what—what happens to our water. They do not know about the water cycle, for instance. You know, how we do have water and how do we have drinking water. You know, how does it rain, go through a discharge zone and filters through the sands and, you know, how many—how many ground water sources do we have? The—and ours is called the Goliad’s Sands, for instance, and how far does it reach. And people just don’t have that kind of knowledge. Most people will tell you that it’s rather boring to—to even sit through a seminar about the ground water cycle and what—what this ground water means to us.
0:34:16 – 2079
BF: Yet, it—it has become an economic issue in—in the costal bend because we’re—Corpus Christi is a major water user and they’re having to pipe water from Choke Canyon and so then it becomes a public issue in terms of, we need water. But even in Corpus Christi where they have so much ref—ref—so many refineries, it—it never became an environmental issue that I know of that—that was fought at any degree because I’m sure that—that those people and those refineries over the years have penetrated our ground water and the Nueces River. I mean, there is no question in my mind. How do we—how do we change it? Gosh. I think that once you burn the wood, you know, you have to plant another tree. But, water? We have to have a lot of rains and a lot of discharge zones. I don’t think we can replace water. Kind of like the rainforest, you know. If we cut it down, we’re hurting ourselves. That’s the basics.
DT: When you were talking about the research on the issues, did you ever find or use as a precedent that prevailed of the Navajo uranium miners in northern New Mexico and look of any of their research studies done there? What did you find there?
0:35:38 – 2079
BF: Yes we did. Basically what we found in some of those mines up there, was that they polluted—they polluted. You mentioned a couple of Indian tribes. They have higher rates of cancer up there. We—we, my wife did most of that research, but we found the—the same thing that we found in Panna Maria, the same thing that we found in Kennedy County, same thing that we found in George West, the same thing that we found in Bruni. In fact, we discovered in Harpersville, that there were babies were having problems. And I think that they were—they were—all of that research paralleled what happened to the—to the Indian tribes. I forget what other sites she researched, but they were all researched. And we made those arguments, lengthy arguments, I’m talking about hours and hours and hours of testimony of—of written materials that was submitted to the Texas Water Commission at the time. It almost seemed like we’d get to a public hearing after submitting all this material that bring—and you have to consider, you know, we—we—we have graduate degrees, but, you know, they brought a few PhD’s with them, you know, and geology and hydrology, you know, and oh, here we are, you know, John Q. Public fighting corporate America, that’s what it was about. And it is very difficult to fight corporate America. The only thing is, the only thing that we found, and—and when they—when they were looking, you know, you get a hydrologist, we can all read. You know, it’s—if you can read then you can interpret. And we were reading the same materials, they just made different interpretations, and we saw that. So, it was who could sell what to whom.
DT: What would happen when you have a lot of complicated technical information and one interpretation says, “Go slow”. The other interpretation says, “Go ahead with the mining”. Why do you think the public or the authorities would be more inclined to say, “Let’s go ahead”.
0:37:58 – 2079
BF: Well, I—I think that, basically, we—we had—they had good arguments in terms of the models, and they had good arguments in terms of the processes, and they had good arguments in terms of, not everything is—is unsafe, you know. There’s a nuclear plant here and a nuclear plant there and the environment is pristine and they brought examples. And I imagine that—that you can—you can find that, you can show examples. And we brought up examples where that didn’t happen. So then we had the pros and cons and—and then you present it to the Board and they’re sitting there, so what’s the difference? How are you going to decide when you’ve got good arguments on both sides? We had good arguments? So what causes them to lean to one side? In my opinion, it’s economics. Who’s got more money? Who’s got the most power? That’s what it’s all about. It’s about Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. It’s about who’s in office, it’s about who you want to help. And, many times, I think that—that we, in America, I remember some people in South America from Honduras came up and I was running a store out of Houston and they were coming up to buy rugs and they said, you know, “We just cannot understand why you American’s waste so much electricity”. They said, “It’s neon city here and lights are on forever”. He said, “We cannot do that where we come from”. Electricity was something very precious and very expensive, and he couldn’t have it. I guess, it’s the difference between an underdeveloped country and a developed country. In essence, what they were saying, we’re wasting energy. And we were, and we are, and we do. We have—they also commented on how many car washes we had because they don’t have any in—in Honduras and we just blew water left and right. And—and they had a point because I kept thinking about, “That’s true, water resources are—are not endless”. You know, so.
DT: Some of these corporations sponsoring this proposal seemed to have the benefit of the doubt in a lot of the decisions at the agencies because of economics, but the economics of the mine seemed marginal, what did you say five people sometimes might work there and 16 at other times. Where was the money flowing?
0:40:32 – 2079
BF: Well, if the price of uranium was right, they made a lot of money, and—and, of course, we even researched that. We—they weren’t even selling it in America. That—that uranium that they were mining in Kleberg County was going somewhere else.
DT: Was the money going into the political process rather than into the local economy?
0:40:53 – 2079
BF: You mean, the money developed from the mining? Or—or how do you mean?
DT: To my way of thinking, a lot of money and effort was going into the lobbying and the political efforts.
0:41:03 – 2079
BF: Right, right. Well, yeah, I think so. But I—I think that—that the amount of profit that they were making, the price was right. What they were paying consultants is nothing to them. To us, it was an effort to fly to Washington D.C. to—to talk to some people and to research the—the Federal Acts that affected ground water. And, we ran across some things at the Federal level where we wanted to declare our groundwater our sole source system. Well, that’s like rewriting the constitution. You know, they—they—they say, “Okay you have a sole source, we want to protect it, and here’s how you protect it”. Well, my God, you know, you—you’re going to need three PhD’s before you—you even get to—to writing your thesis, you know. That’s—that’s how complicated that system was. They made it very hard. And then, the—the Dallas District, the—the environmental people, the EPA people in Dallas, extremely reluctant to—to get involved with declaring a ground water source. Why? We went through the public hearing, we had citizens. The only thing that was left was initiative and referendum, let’s take a vote. And I remember we stood up and said, you know, “Why don’t we put this up for a vote. Can we vote on this?” And they said, “Can’t do that. This is a company, they’re—they’re mining. What are you going to vote for?” Well, we want to vote where we want the uranium company here or not. And we knew we could win that. If we went to initiative referendum, the people would vote it down. That’s why it’s not part of that system. We could not have that privilege to vote whether we wanted someone to pollute our ground water or not. It was left up in the—it was left to the—to the bureaucrats in Austin, in Washington, and the—the Dallas—Dallas district office was terrible, just terrible, just terrible about following up on—on our request to declare a ground water, a sole ground water source. If you could—if we could do that, then we could have—we would have more power in terms of what the uranium company could do. And, basically, we would have had the power to say, “You’re not going to mine here”. Well, that’s never going to happen, okay.
DT: So, when you approached the EPA, they just didn’t act very responsive?
0:43:20 – 2079
BF: They—they responded, but they didn’t answer our questions. They never—they never, and they gave us a process to—to declare this a ground water, sole ground water source, and, that process is beyond anybody’s reach.
DT: Do you think there is an environmental justice issue, that the community doesn’t have a lot of political power?
0:43:44 – 2079
BF: Absolutely, absolutely. There is a process, that’s a public hearing process, and we can complain and we can ask, but if—if the—the powers that be are not on your side, you know, you’re not going to do it, and you can’t go to referendum on issues like this. You know, it would be a good issue for a legislator to put forth and say, you know, “From now on, any environmental issue, we’re going to put it up for referendum. Do we want to cut the trees or not, let’s vote on it”. That’s the democratic process, isn’t it? But we don’t do it that way in America. Not that. We vote on everything else. We vote on other things, but we don’t vote on the environment.
DT: Why do you think that is?
0:44:27 – 2079
BF: Kind of like the tobacco industry and the lobbyists and a legislator probably wouldn’t touch it, maybe even because they fear for their lives. I mean, we’ve had a lot of cases of people involved in the environment that—that fear for their lives, but I think there’s a strong lobby out there. I don’t know that we have a legislator that would even propose a bill, or maybe they have, I just don’t know about it. And—and—and a legislator says, “Look, from now on, instead of cutting down the forest, and building homes, we’re going to have the people who live there if we can cut down the forest and see what they say”.
DT: Did you every feel personally at risk making these arguments against the mine?
0:45:14 – 2079
BF: I never felt personally at risk because this is my home base, this is my territory, and it is not theirs. I—I was in my home base and I wasn’t in an environment that—that I did not know. I knew it better than they did. And they were from the outside, in fact, these people that brought the uranium company in, I never felt, I never feared anything. Leary of them, yes, but it was not a fear of my life, you know. I—I’ve always felt very comfortable in my own back yard.
DT: Any chance of being isolated, where you were proposing something that the community didn’t go with?
0:45:59 – 2079
BF: No, I didn’t feel isolated. I felt, I felt like we were dealing with an issue that was hard to deal with because the—the public input is limited. You know, you have public hearings, the pros and cons, you go through the whole process, you’re trying to prove something to a court, the court being the Texas Water Commission or TNRCC [Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission], and then whatever they say is what happens, that’s it, that’s the end of—and you can appeal, and we went through appeals processes, but we never went through referendums or anything like that. Recently, we just had an issue of—of an overpass here in this community. And, because it was a city issue, they said, “Let’s put it for referendum, let’s put it up for referendum”. And the city council said, “We want this overpass because we’re going to save lives, for the ambulance to go over”. And some people said, “No, you’re not going to save nothing, you’re going to ruin our highway, you’re going to do this”. And we put it up for referendum and it failed. It really failed because the public had that process built in because of city ordinance, self-government is a home rule government. Well, that doesn’t quite hit for county government because it’s an extension of the state and the environment, and then you’ve got the feds involved. But I wished that we had home rule power and, of course, this uranium company was not in the city of Kingsville, it was outside, it was in the county jurisdiction, so there was no home rule power to bring referendum up in any form or fashion. Maybe, if it had been inside the city limits, we could have pulled referendum, but not outside. And that goes for anything. If you’re—if you’re out in—in an unincorporated part of the country, what can you do? What can we do? But argue in public hearings the pros and cons and plead with boards that stand as—as judges in terms of what’s good for our environment.
DT: Did you have any civil disobedience? Did you go to meetings with placards and signs, “No nukes”? Did you do anything along those lines?
0:48:16 – 2079
BF: No, no, it was very orderly. Everything we did was very orderly. The public hearings were conducted by state agencies. They—there was a process, you know, we presented our case, we were given a certain amount of time. We presented our research, that is documented, that was documented, and then these people, the attorneys that—that work for these agencies, assessed the materials and the vote was two to one, it was not unanimous. The—the first round, it was three zero, we won, you know. You know, we didn’t come and celebrate, we just didn’t do that kind of thing, we just, you know, we saved our—our water. Then the next—the second round, is when it started deteriorating, the vote was two to one in favor of the uranium permit. So what happened between round one and round two, what happened? Well what happened was politics, that’s what happened.
DT: Have you heard any details of how the vote changed and why?
0:49:20 – 2079
BF: At the time?
DT: Or since, yes.
0:49:22 – 2079
BF: Ah, I—you know at the time we approached it, the King Ranch was on our side, all the commissioners were on our side, the uranium people had not infiltrated the community, they didn’t know anything about it, we were, you know, from here, we said, “This is wrong”, it—it went through. We stopped them. Well, they came back and joined the Chamber, they went through the political process, starting meeting people and holding their own, not public hearings, but holding their own town meetings and inviting the public and doing this educational process, and we went and we were allowed to ask questions. But in time, they won out, they won the Chamber, they want—they won the Economic Development Counter—Council and, as I remember, I walked into the Economic Development Council’s director’s office, he had a little pyramid sitting on his office, and it said “URI” and it had a little piece of yellow cake inside, you know. And—and I—I said, you know, “I know that it can’t harm you because it’s sealed, but I bet you if you crack it open and eat it, you’ll die, guaranteed”. And he said, “Well, but that’s not what it’s for”. He said, “That’s not what it’s for”. “What’s it for?” I said. “What—what is this thing for?” We argued back and forth what it was for. And, I even walked into a strong politician’s—state politician’s office in Austin, and there was that same little pyramid. I said “Oh, God. I need—I need to leave here”. I didn’t even waste my time anymore. Anywhere I saw a little pyramid, I knew that they had infiltrated. But I never saw it in Senator Truan’s office, okay, I never saw it there. He’s been a staunch supporter of the environment. And—and he did help us. And—and I think that—that we would have, we would have probably faired better if we had had the economics to back us up, number 1, and even the politics, you know. We didn’t have either one.
DT: Did you get any help from the media? The newspapers?
0:51:33 – 2079
BF: The media is owned by the King Ranch in this community. So round 1 was supported, you know. And then as soon as it—as soon as everything shifted, in the Kingsville Record, they, of course, gave the side to—to the uranium company. And they even made the—the—the general engineer of the uranium company President of the Chamber at one time, and I know him. I know him well. I say “Hello” to him, and you know, and in the—in the back of my mind I say, “You haven’t died yet, you know, you’ve been up near the yellow cake for the last 20 years, you know”, and that—that’s mean, I—I shouldn’t say that, he’s a nice guy, he has a family, he has a—a background in mining, and—and, you know, that’s his livelihood. We just didn’t agree in—in coming to—this is my community, I was born and raised here, he wasn’t. And maybe I—maybe I shouldn’t think that way, because we’re—we’re all Americans, you know, type of thing, but, he can go anywhere he wants, I suppose, and—and this is home for—for family and generations of family, there’s three or four generations of my family here. And maybe that’s an important factor in terms of how we look at it. I don’t—we don’t—we didn’t want to stop progress, that’s not what—what we’re about, but we wanted to save our ground water. And maybe we saved it, to a degree, I don’t know what that degree is, we’re going to find that out once we get into the res—the restoration phase, and that’s close at hand. The uranium company hasn’t busted yet, but it’s close.
DT: To bankruptcy?
0:53:07 – 2079
BF: Yes.
DT: What has driven it into bankruptcy?
0:53:10 – 2079
BF: The price of uranium went down. And it’s gone down many times, ah, you know, we’re—we’re Catholics, we light candles, you know, and every time the price went down, we’d light a few candles and try to maintain, you know we’ve—we’ve lost political support, we’ve lost, you know, we’ve used all our minds that we could, you know, let’s just do a little prayer, you know. And—and we—we did that because we felt strongly about this issue about—and—and I think that if, not just uranium, if somebody had come in here, and—and I remember an issue at the county, I was working for the county and the—the—the tree people came in the, was it Arbor Day, and it—it’s a small non-profit, and they came before the county and they told this one commissioner, his name is Commissioner Loomis, they said, “We understand that you all are going to cut down all the mesquites across the street here because you’re going to make a little park here, develop a little park, and we’re here to tell you that that cutting down of trees is not healthy for the environment”. So the commissioner sat there and says, “Well, the other day the King Ranch cleared 40,000 acres of mesquite to take advantage of—of agricultural tax incentives, have you called them?” And the ladies were s—said, “I don’t want to be mean to you, but I’d like for you to send them a letter and tell them what you think, and then come over here and whatever they do, I’ll do, how’s that?” And they said, “Thank-you very much commissioner”. And, that was okay to cut down 40,000 acres of mesquite trees for agricultural purposes, tax incentives, but it was not okay to cut down a few trees across the courthouse, and they didn’t, actually. But that’s the kind of system we have, you know, it doesn’t make sense sometimes.
DT: You said earlier that you, and you may have been in jest, but you were saying that you lit some candles to help your cause. I’m wondering if the church or other religious institutions in Kingsville were of any help. Sometimes religious figures speak out on the environment.
0:55:38 – 2079
BF: Not on this issue, we never—we—we don’t use the church, we I say, myself, my wife, and I do not use the church for that purpose. We’ll light candles, and we’ll do a pilgrimage to a site, but not use the church to—to advocate for anything.
DT: What sort of pilgrimages would you do?
0:56:03 – 2079
BF: Well, Catholics believe in—we have shrines all over the place and relics, so we—we travel to a place where there’s a bone that belonged to one of our saints.
DT: Are there any particular saints? I guess St. Francis would be one that’s sympathetic?
0:56:18 – 2079
BF: Actually, we played to—we prayed to a pr—a saint that goes by the name of Judas Thaddeus, not Judas Iscariot, but Judas Thaddeus and he was a cousin to Christ and he’s our saint of hopeless cases and we’ve prayed a lot to him.
DT: You mentioned that the tree people came in on an unrelated issue. I’ve found in some of the studies I’ve done that when you have a human health impact, in this case, the uranium, they often don’t pay attention, but if you can link the mining to the X wildlife zone or migratory bird, or sometimes they get more interested in helping if they find out if it hurts animals than people because they don’t want to know about humans.
0:57:08 – 2079
BF: Well, you know, that’s—that’s interesting. We—we looked at that. See, we have an, we have an estuary here in Kleberg County, and we addressed the estuary. We went to Washington with it and said, “Look, you know, this could harm these wet lands”. And one of the few pristine estuaries in the—the northern continent that—that is still very viable. And it’s a—it’s a bird sanctuary and there’s a few endangered species that—that are found in Kleberg County and we used that. We—and we used that with Washington more than we did with—with the state because we were looking for exemptions and—and I bring up exemptions because we were looking at different avenues of fighting this uranium company so we went, we went through the Endangered Species Act and ran into another road block, you know. In Washington, you’ve got these—these guys that some believe in saving the eagle, and some really don’t give a damn about saving the eagle, you know, they just don’t care. So we went that route, and—and we used the fact that—that we had certain animals in the entire coastal bend that, you know, that could be affected. And—and I brought up earlier the comment about the—about a commissioner, because when we made our presentation about endangered species and—and even some botany that was involved, one commissioner said, you know, “I—I can’t really get—get over it with you guys wanting to save all the toads and all the flies and insects”. And—and I clearly told him, I said, you know, “You haven’t heard about the canaries, you know, where have you been? When the canaries go, then we’re right behind them”. I said, “Don’t you know that?” And he said, “Oh, that’s a lot of hog wash”. He said, “Nobody’s going to miss a couple of toads”. And I said, “Well, I’m sorry you feel that way”. But obviously, he did not understand what that meant. And, I—I’d—I would imagine he falls into the category that cannot name who the 16th President is in our history, and we have many people like that. But that’s—that’s a factor. The Endangered Species Act, we followed that, we followed the—the wetlands process, trying to save our environment, it didn’t work. There’s some contradictions in terms of what the legislation says in saving our environment and what they really want to do with it.
DT: What do they really want to do with it?
0:59:53 – 2079
BF: Nothing. You know, you get down to EPA in Dallas and you say, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, here’s this act, here’s this act”. They say, “Well, we need to look at it”. Well, if the word comes down from wherever their boss is, that’s who controls it. Politics. And we ran into brick wall after brick wall in terms of what was at hand and what we could do and what was done, just two different things. We could have all the Endangered Species Acts that we want, there’s not too many people working on it. And you start looking at a list, and I have a list somewhere around here of endangered species in—in this area, in Texas. And you start looking at toads and you start looking at different kinds of fish and different birds. And one was spotted the other, it was in the newspaper, one bird was spotted in Kennedy County and all of the bird watchers came from all over. And we had made that point. We said, “Tourism, you know, if the bird goes, then that’s the cleanest dollar you can get”. But somehow, they—they couldn’t relate to tourism dollars, you know, they could relate to up front money, and possibly the Chamber could relate to the $1,000 dollar donation that the company gives them every year, you know, but where’s the bird—where’s the money from the bird? Well, they—they don’t understand economics, you know, they don’t understand how—how the bird watchers that came to Kennedy County to, I think it was some—some kind of robin, that came to view this robin, had to stay somewhere, had to fill up with gas, and they don’t understand those type of micro-economics. The Chamber wanted their little $1000 dollar donation, I suppose, from the uranium company.
End of Reel 2079
DT: It seems that politics often plays a role in these decisions about sites, and one prominent politician is Carlos Truan who has often spoken out about the environment. Could you tell a few experiences with him.
0:01:49 – 2080
BF: Well, you know, there’s a—a couple of stories, but the Senator, I think because of his background from a ru—rural community, Kingsville, Texas, in fact, was sensitive to the needs of the—the common man and the common good. But I remember a story that he—that he told, and—and, you know, when—when you’re involved in politics, there’s the powers that be. Well, he applied to who it was—he applied for a job after he graduated Texas A&M with a BBA, he applied for a job with an oil company that was called, at that time, Humble Oil. And they said—no he hadn’t finished college yet, and they said, well, “You’re not qualified, you know, you need to finish school”. And, he said, “Oh, okay”. So he came back after he got his BBA and he applied, and they said, “You’re—you’re overqualified”. So when he became a representative, Humble Oil had access to federal funds for various reasons, whatever reasons they receive federal funds for, and he caused an investigation and really opened the floodgates for Hispanics to start working with what is now Exxon. And, 25 years later, many of them are retiring after 25 years with Exxon, but he’s the guy that opened that door. And—and he’s and example of, here’s this little guy that said, “Wait a minute, you’re not going to treat me this way”. And they heard his call. And all he wanted was just a little fairness. But, I think that that’s the kind of guy he is and when it came to—to the corporate politics of the uranium company, he knew that and he knew we were the little people and he wanted to help us. And he did, he sure did.
DT: Do you think that this is sort of an instance of environmental injustice, of racism?
0:03:49 – 2080
BF: Racism? No. In—in—in the environment? No, no. I—I don’t think that—I think these guys just wanted to make a buck at the expense of our environment, at the expense of the—the humans that lived here, whether you were black, brown, or white, it didn’t matter to them. I don’t think it had to do with racism at all.
DT: Speaking of finances, eventually I guess, the market isn’t right, or the ore runs out and these mines get shut down. I wonder if you could talk about the closure on one of these mines.
0:04:22 – 2080
BF: Well, I—I don’t—I don’t feel that there’s ever going to be closure because of the—the process of—of—of restoring water, number 1. And—and also, the—the water cycle, it—it—it’s something that doesn’t happen in a year, two years, ten years, it’s a long cycle and it goes through a long process. So, when you talk about restoration to the way it was before, and of course, some of these mining companies claim that—that now the water is cleaner because of reverse osmosis, cleaner in—in what way, you know. I—I don’t think it ever ends. Restoration, I have to use the oil industry. I think we’re suffering from it, there were no rules. We just, you know, dug wells all over the place and we’re suffering for it, and we’re going to suffer for many years to come. How do we clean that up? Well, there—there’s so many wells out there that—that we don’t even know where they are that are left uncapped, for instance, or—or maybe even used to—to dump in, how do we know? And—and so, life goes on, you know, and we’re going to suffer for it because there were no guidelines. And—and I think maybe we have a little more in place now when it comes to uranium, but we still have the—the process of restoration. And I—I have to allude to Panna Maria and those places. When you have to go and take 18 inches off the topsoil, you know, come on. A guy has—lives on—on a farm and you have to take 18 inches off the top soil so—and they say, “Either that or buy another farm, but not exactly like the one you’ve got”. You know, it just doesn’t make sense, it can’t happen. And, you know, we would—we would fight it anywhere, anytime. And, I think we still are. The STOP Group has—has taken up that challenge, the—the restoration process, and we’re right there, you know. We—we know what they’re doing, we’re advising them, we’re—and—and anything political that I can do, and I am a political person, by necessity, I try and use whatever little bit of influence that I’ve got, and it’s not very much, but I try to use it if I can to save our environment.
DT: You spoke about the farmer, did you ever get any assistance in the course of the mine or the waste site disposal later on, from the landowners who owned the land adjacent to the mine?
0:07:07 – 2080
BF: Some—some of them sold out, of course. They were — they — they — the uranium company came in and leased, and leased, and leased, and leased, and of course, some said, you know, “This is—this is an opportunity for me, I’ve been farming, I’ve been dying by the vine here, you know. I—I—all of a sudden I can be rich”. But there were some farmers, like the Cumberlands, that—that fought back and they are very actively involved today. Yes, some farmers fought back, some didn’t, some were bought off.
DT: Did all of them understand that they were leasing uranium rights?
0:07:43 – 2080
BF: Yes—yeah, they knew it. They—they knew that they had to join the uranium company. They had to join the Chamber, they knew that. They may not have understood the process. I can’t imagine anybody understanding the process says, “Go ahead, go ahead, pollute my—my farm”. You know, I don’t know that that’s the case, it’s possible that they did not know. But money talks. And they sold.
DW: Letters talk too. I’m wondering if in California, from videotaping an anti-nuclear group by this Ward Valley proposed dump and the Native Americans protested, that the key person they had to get to was the Governor. The Governor on a community-active television show says, “No Ward Valley”. To the hearing, they bring the video of the Governor to the board of commissioners and they show him the tape. And you hear the commissioner off camera saying, “I don’t have to listen to what the Governor has to say on some TV program”. That would be damaging evidence. So the Governor is the last word on that kind of thing. Is it the same in the state of Texas?
0:08:52 – 2080
BF: No. No, not at all. No—no the—the process here ends with the appointees of the Governor. You know, we have a system, we have a system of agencies and at that time, the Texas Water Commissioner was appointed by the Governor, so it wasn’t the Governor’s last word. I suppose, that, if you call the Governor, and since he made the appointments, he would call up Joe and say, “Hey, Joe, we need to do this”. Obviously, I mean, that’s the way politics work. But—but the decision, I cannot say that—that somebody called the Governor, I—I don’t know that they went that far. I think that they went right to—to the Water Commission Board because we have a system—we have a lobby system in Texas. It’s—it’s ripe, I mean, it’s—they’re—they’re out there, they’re out there lobbying and moving, and they’re at every agency, you know. They’re—they’re working the legislators, and—and they’re working the commissions. We have umpteen commissions. I think that’s the system that’s in place. And, I know from—from the experience, like I said, when we first went up, there was no lobby. We had a good argument. They had an argument, we had our argument. Why was the argument for staff and for the water commission so good that they denied them a permit the first time around, and after a little bit of politics, it changed. Why? We had a good argument. I mean, we wanted to save our water. And they agreed with us as long as there was no opposition. It changed. We know that. And from that experience…
DT: Did you ever meet any of these lobbyists to see how persuasive they are?
0:10:36 – 2080
BF: Yeah. There—there was one that—that I met that came down and he didn’t know who I was, but, he came down and his—I forget his name. He was a big guy but his name was small. That—that’s what I remember. And he went and he told this—this guy that I knew at the King Ranch, he said, “What’s going on? The—what are you all worried about? Who—who’s causing all this rigamorole for you?” And this guy that I knew, I turned around and looked at him square in the face and he said, “Just sit down, just si–. He didn’t want to comment because I was sitting right there. And I wanted to hear what he—what this comment was from this guy that worked for the Ranch. And—and I—I said, “Tell him”. “Nothing…” “Hey, these are little people, what are you worried about?” And I was laughing. And—and this guy’s name was Kellet, he’s a friend of mine: Rod Kellet was the accountant for the King Ranch. And—and I laughed, I seem him every once in awhile, you know, he shows up at Senator Truan’s annual or Solomon Ortiz’s annual bash at Corpus and, and he’s no longer with the King Ranch. And I kid him, I said, “Hey, they didn’t need you anymore, you’re gone”. He said, “No, no, I—I quite”. I said, “Get out, they let you go, man. If they don’t need you, they let you go, don’t give me that”. But, that lobbyist said, “These are little people”. He was right. We were little people in his system. Absolutely. We were crushed at that time. We—from that time on, we lost battle, after battle, after battle. We only won the first round.
DT: Could you talk about the more recent rounds, this whole proposal to use the mine as a waste dump.
0:12:22 – 2080
BF: Well, the—the recent, the recent work has been done by the STOP Group. And, they were permitted, no they were not permitted to, in a limited fashion, to use it as a dump ground, I think they went to—to Bruni, I believe that’s what happened. But the STOP Group had a lot to do with that. And—and since 92, 93, the STOP Group is the one that’s really questioned what they’re doing and restoration, and restoration of sites. And the latest correspondence I read is just like last month’s, they posed some questions of TNRCC and—about bankruptcy and what’s going to happen, and do they have enough money to clean up. And TNRCC came back and answered each one with half-truths. Yes, the money is there; no, they’re not bankrupt; yes, they’re still continuing; no, we’re not going to let them do this, just, in a, are—are we in danger or not? That question is not answered in this document I read. Is the water polluted or not? That’s not answered. I think that’s what they were asking. How polluted is our water, basically. Why can’t they ever answer that?
DT: How long is ever? When do you think there will be closure on the site?
0:13:44 – 2080
BF: Well, they were talking about the—the price of uranium. I don’t know long they can hold out. But they put out a—a publication in the Dallas Times, I think the morning news, that—that they were having financial problems. And it’s just a—and so when—when somebody picked that up, the STOP Group questioned TNRCC and TNRCC assured that they had bond money in case restoration was—was needed. But as—they said, as it is right now, they have not gone under. That—that’s what they were saying. Yet, they were publishing in a newspaper just a month ago, that they were having economic problems. So, you know, they couldn’t get a straight answer, you know. What’s the answer? We want to close and we might close, so when do we start restoration was the question, you know. What—what are you all going to do? Are they going to walk out and how much money is in there? Is it enough money? They never came down to the figure. Is it enough money to restore? They said, “Yes”. Well, how do you know that? “Well, because we know that that’s enough money because we’ve had other problems”. Come on. We don’t know. We don’t know if there’s enough money there to restore the water. I think the—I—I can’t remember the figure, I don’t know if—I—I—I have a million dollars in—in the back of my mind, but I think it’s more than that.
DT: Was it likely that they would try to restore the site before proceeding with using it as a waste site?
0:15:20 – 2080
BF: Well, they’re still mining. So, they’re going to continue mining. If—if uranium were to shoot back up, they’ll continue mining. They’ve got a permit. So, that—that’s not going to end. If they could, if they could do—the only thing that can stop it right now is economics, not any process. Because, the STOP Group has asked for public hearings, has requested more—more information and this and that, and—and are fighting it. They still have a permit. Those permits were granted under their model system, you know. So, and, you know they have this system where Site 1, Site 2, Site 3. Well, when are you going to start cleaning up Site 1? Well, we’re not through mining. Well, wait a minute, we don’t want you to go to site 4 until you know that you can accomplish Site 1 effectively. Well, that’s not the way we do it. TNRCC. We know that they can—they’re—they’re still mining, they’re going to get through it. But we’re going to give them—unless you have something in particular that you’re—you’re—you’re not in agreement with, we’re going to let them go to Site 4. Well, way back then, we were questioning why go to Site 2 when you haven’t finished Site 1, what’s the purpose? Why are they mining so many sites and they still haven’t finished Site 1? We see a problem. There’s a problem. Why not mine until you finish Site 1, restore it, and then go to Site 2? Oh no, that’s too—it’s too costly for us, we can’t do it that way. Well, those are the arguments that are—that are still being fought today, this very day.
DT: How do you, I guess these mines sort of multiply and divide, how do you make sure that other communities don’t have to struggle as you have and stop after you?
0:17:12 – 2080
BF: How do we make sure other communities don’t struggle?
DT: Yes.
0:17:18 – 2080
BF: I don’t know that—that they’re not going to. I don’t think there’s a system in place that—that will prevent them from struggling. The system is—is—it was not meant for John Q. Public.
DT: Who was it meant for?
0:17:31 – 2080
BF: Ah, the—the system that’s in place there is to facilitate mining. So that they can mine uranium.
DT: In the business of issuing permits?
0:17:40 – 2080
BF: It’s the business of issuing permits. That system is—is not built for—for, you know, preserving the environment, it’s there to facilitate uranium mining.
DT: Have you changed your expectations of government after dealing with TNRCC and some of the local and county…?
0:18:01 – 2080
BF: No. I’ve dealt—I’ve deal with government in—in many different ways and—and, you know, if you look at the number of bills that—that were introduced and passed, or if you look at them, every biennium you know, you—you start looking at—at this entire process that it’s not perfect. But it’s a process, you know, and—and we—we try to function within it. I think we have a good system, but no system is perfect and—and we have to work within it. And, again, you know, one day, one person will jump up, and maybe Truan has jumped up. He—he’s tried to pass a lot of legislation, and not all of it has past. Maybe sometime the consciousness will seep in through osmosis with—with these guys that are elected up there. You know, the criteria to be elected to—to any office is 18, age 18, and a citizen, you know. They don’t require you to be a hydrologist, to be up there and making decisions, or a medical doctor. Although I think the last time I—Congress is the majority attorneys, State of Texas is a little bit different, you know. I don’t know that—that, I’ve seen the Senate, I don’t know that Congress is that way, the House, but, you know, the criteria, if you go up in the State of Texas, you start looking at these guys, you know, what—what—what drives them? You know, you need do a whole, you know, psycho history on them, you know, see what—what their purpose is because, I—I don’t think the system will—will change drastically with the mentality we have right now.
DT: Speaking of mentalities and osmosis, do you think the osmosis is going in the right direction or is it reverse osmosis?
0:19:56 – 2080
BF: Well, no, no. Let me say that—that there’s been strides made, there’s been advances.
DT: Do you think osmosis is improving?
0:20:02 – 2080
BF: I think that it—it has improved because we have media. Where there wasn’t an Endangered Species Act, there is. We do have a board up there, you know, we can go talk to them. I mean, it’s not as if it’s not there. So, I have to say to some degree, you know, that it’s there. Now, maybe the direction needs to change because it was, it was geared to—to serve, to facilitate the progress from their point of view. And—and you have to understand that some of these people are out there cutting lumbar, mining uranium, what—coal, whatever. They’re looking at it in terms of progress, you know. We need to progress, we need to build a—a bypass to progress. The mentality of bypass is—is movement. The Department of Transportation, another issue, they want to move people. Well, if you’re sitting in rural Kingsville and say, “Wait a minute, bypass means nobody’s going to stop. I—I—I need somebody to stop at my grocery store to buy a few candies and things, buy some gasoline”. This whole concept of bypass, well they’ll—they’ll argue with you and say, “Well, wait a minute, wait a minute, that’s you’re problem, we’re only here to move people”. Well, come on, you know. Can we talk about it? Can we, can we look at this whole bypass—I know we want to move people, but we also want to keep people in a town for a period of time to facilitate economics. We’re not quite there yet. We have some issues at hand right now that, I-69 super-highway is leading into Mexico, we’re not on the same page. And we’re not on the same page with the environment, but it is a process, it’s there, we have to perfect it a little bit. And—and maybe, you know, through time, I—I guess, we have, we have a constitution that we’ve tried to rebuild, I don’t know how many times, but we’ve spent some mon—some bucks on that and haven’t accomplished that. And then we—we—we come back to, you know, every other year and—and try to pass all these bills. And—and I—I think some of them just sit there, you know. You—if you pass a bill nobody does anything about it, then what’s the use of passing a bill. But we haven’t passed one that says, “Let’s give the people a right to vote if a company can come in and possibly contaminate their water or contaminate the environment”. I don’t know that we’ll ever see anything like that.
DT: Do you think that water contamination or some other issue is the big environmental challenge for the future. What would you pick out as being the big problem facing the next generation.
0:23:00 – 2080
BF: In terms of pollution, or in terms of energy?
DT: Whatever sort of conservation issue.
0:23:05 – 2080
BF: Well, I—I would say that—that water is at the very top. We—we—we’re having water problems right now in Corpus Christi. We pipe water in, we have South Texas Water Authority because that’s—that’s unpredictable in terms of whether we’re going to need it, but the assumption was we’re going to run out of water. So we created this South Texas Water Authority and spent a good buck on it. And now some people are saying, “Well, we might not need it”. So, the attitude is, well, at least we have it. We don’t have nothing if Corpus can’t solve their problem. You know, if they can’t get water down to—to their area, we’re not going to get water. I mean, you know, we’re down—down this way. I would say water is—is—is a major problem. And—and, I—I don’t know that there is any body other than the people that ride the rainbow warrior fighting all those other people out there, you know, when—when you start looking at—at pollution issues and—and people that are fighting it, they’re just not in the news a whole lot. They do movies about them after they kill them, but that’s about it. I—I don’t know who’s out there, what—what they’re doing. I know I read a lot about our forests. I read a lot about the water issues, energy issues, nuclear issues. I guess those are the ones that are the most important, in my opinion anyway.
DT: We’ve discussed some of the problems and the ills and the pollution and so on, perhaps we can look at the flip side of this. Are there special spots in Texas or elsewhere that you like to be outdoors, pieces of nature that you’ve enjoyed visiting.
0:25:04 – 2080
BF: In Texas?
DT: Yes.
0:25:05 – 2080
BF: My own backyard. Yeah, I go fishing right here at Baffin Bay, I fish there, my son fishes there, my father fished, my ancestors that lived here for three generations. We enjoy the—the wetlands, we enjoy the birds. We, you know, now hunting is managed. You can’t hunt. I used to be able to walk a few yards from where I lived down this way and I could go hunt deer because we’d make tamales when we killed deer, you know. And, you can’t do that anymore. It’s managed now. You have to pay $300-$500 for a deer if he’s got over 14 points, you know, or ten points, whatever. So, we don’t hunt anymore. But—but it’s here, you know, it’s protected. That’s really protected, I—I suppose because of the money involved, again, economics. The ranchers all have leases now and there’s more game wardens than I can begin to imagine. But when I was a kid, they—they just weren’t around. And, I think that there’s a lot of environments in West Texas, I—I know that that has been a site for—for nuclear waste and the people have fought it. The Pecos area, I’ve been in that area. I’ve been up in the hill county, that’s protected. The Edward’s Aquifer is protected. I hope they keep on because those are super places to be around. The Guadalupe River. Vic just went—as his last vacation a couple of years ago, he just took his whole vacation down, I think he went down Guadalupe, you know, rafting all the way down. And you can’t do that if we pollute these places. So, we—we visit the outdoors. It doesn’t cost us anything right now.
DT: Do you remember where you were on the first Earth Day?
0:27:10 – 2080
BF: The first Earth Day. The very first Earth Day, I believe that, gee, we celebrated many Earth Days through a student council because we were sponsors for a student council and we did that for 15 years or more and we were at the high school because we did that often. We did a lot of environmental projects with the student council.
DT: Do you remember reading Silent Spring or, at the time, was that part of your curriculum?
0:27:41 – 2080
BF: No, no, no. At the time, I’ll tell you what we did a lot of, we put in a lot of oak trees. We—our projects all had to do with planting something, adding something to this environment and we didn’t do too much reading. We—when we worked with the student council, we took them out and we—we planted a tree, we visited the wet—the wet lands here, visited Baffin Bay, things like that.
DT: Do you have any advice that you give to young people, the student council members, or to others on how to take care of the environment?
0:28:23 – 2080
BF: Well, we haven’t been with the student council since—since my wife was the principa1 involved in—in—with students. But, I—I suppose that my advice to a young person is to garden as much as possible. And we do that. And, in fact, if you went into my backyard, you’d see a super, super garden. And, we do that from the heart. I mean…
DT: Vegetable garden?
0:28:50 – 2080
BF: No, it’s not a vegetable garden, it’s just different plants that are indigenous to our area. And, we’ve got a pond and, you can almost take a—it feels like a sauna bath out there sometimes, it’s something that we just, like a jungle—our own little jungle.
DT: Do birds come in?
0:29:09 – 2080
BF: There are thousands come in there. We’ve got bird feeders all over the place, yeah. And I think I would encourage people to—to do that. Maybe it’s therapy for us, I don’t know. But we like it.
End of reel 2080
End of interview with Ben Figueroa