This is one of the things I hate about this act!

For immediate release
April 7, 2005
For more information, please contact:
Eleanor Falcon, Director of Public Affairs
603.357.3122 ext 213
efalcon@antiochne.edu


Antioch New England Study Trip Sparks Political Harassment In Louisiana
Respected Environmental Advocate Forced Out of Job By Attorney General

Keene, NH - From March 14 to 25, two instructors and 13 master's
students from Antioch New England Graduate School's Environmental
Studies Program in Keene, NH visited Louisiana as part of a field
studies course entitled Environmental Justice in the Mississippi Delta.
During their visit, the Antioch New England class met with a diverse
array of stakeholders, including elected officials, petrochemical
industry executives, union leaders, scientists, EPA officials,
environmental activists, and members of polluted communities along the
stretch of the Mississippi River that many state officials call "the
Chemical Corridor" and local people often call "Cancer Alley." The
Antioch New England study group also met some people they did not expect
to, including off-duty police and sheriff's department officers and
corporate security officials who detained them on two separate occasions
because they took photos of industrial facilities from public roadways
and sidewalks.

On March 16, Mr. Willie Fontenot was accompanying the group in his
official capacity as Community Liaison Officer for the Louisiana
Attorney General's Office. They were touring the neighborhood
surrounding the major ExxonMobil chemical facility in the area. Mr.
Fontenot took the group to the neighborhood because ExxonMobil has
engaged in a program to buy out nearby homeowners who had long
complained of toxic emissions from the plant. During a stop on a side
street off Scenic Highway, some students got out of the group's vehicle
and took photos of a remaining home and the ExxonMobil facility.
Students are required to complete a visual presentation about the trip
as a course assignment and took photos throughout their stay in
Louisiana.

Course instructor Steve Chase, the Director of Antioch's Environmental
Advocacy and Organizing Program, said members of the group had been
detained the day before by a corporate security guard near the Shell
chemical plant in Norco who claimed that photographing industrial
facilities was a violation of federal law and had threatened Chase and
the students with images of FBI agents knocking on their doors in the
middle of the night. Mr. Fontenot explained, however, that while the
police had every right to stop and ask people who they were, standing on
public property and photographing facilities was perfectly legal. "I've
researched this extensively over the years because I often give tours to
academics and journalists as part of my job with the Attorney General's
Office," said Mr. Fontenot.

Within two minutes of the stop near the ExxonMobiil plant, a pair of
off-duty officers from the Baton Rouge sheriff's and police departments,
wearing their official public service uniforms, but in the employ of
ExxonMobil, quickly detained the group. Fulltime ExxonMobil security
officials soon joined the detention team. "We were less than impressed,"
said co-instructor Abigail Abrash Walton, "when one of the officers
falsely stated that three of the students had gone on company property
and then falsely claimed that we were refusing to turn over our IDs."
When asked by the course instructor about what actions he would be
taking in filing a report about the group, the off-duty sheriff's
department officer refused to answer, and instead responded aggressively
that he was going to call in "homeland security" people who would detain
the group into the night.

The group was released after more than an hour, but later learned that
the sheriff's department had filed a complaint with the Attorney General
against Mr. Fontenot, the group's local guide for the day. Both The New
Orleans Times-Picayune and The Baton Rouge Advocate reported that Mr.
Fontenot was forced to retire at 10 am on Tuesday, April 5, or risk
being fired over the incident. Said Mr. Fontenot, "I was advised that
taking retirement was a better way to go."

"I am very disappointed," said Chase, "that our detention served as the
catalyst for the Attorney General to force Mr. Fontenot out of the
public service job he's held for 27 years. Given what we experienced, I
suspect that this whole matter has just been used as an excuse to remove
one of the state's most respected citizen participation advocates from
the Attorney General's Office." Chase added, "I am particularly stunned
that Mr. Fontenot lost his job when even the U.S. Coast Guard
investigator who phoned me when we arrived back in New Hampshire assured
me that there is absolutely no local, state, or federal law against
photographing industrial facilities from public sidewalks."

Co-instructor Abigail Abrash Walton noted, "This incident showed our
students a vivid example of how law enforcement and corporations can
sometimes overstep their legitimate security duties in the guise of
'homeland security.' This experience was also a firsthand glimpse of the
type of over-the-top repression that community members and their
supporters told us they experience on the frontlines of trying to defend
their communities' health and homes in Louisiana."

As a response to Mr. Fontenot being forced out of his job, the
Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program at Antioch New England
Graduate School is working with Marylee Orr, Executive Director of the
Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN), to create a fund to help
Mr. Fontenot make up his lost salary and continue to work for
environmental justice in Louisiana through a nonprofit organization of
his choice. The Environmental Advocacy and Organizing Program, LEAN, and
other Louisiana citizen groups and members of the academic community are
considering further actions aimed at addressing the political harassment
of academics, concerned community members, and advocates in Louisiana.

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