[MUSIC] You got to understand this is a poor neighborhood, a few white but most of them is black and very poor. The industries that's in here contaminate this whole area. [MUSIC] >> The chemicals are released into the air by this facility are very toxic and are known to cause cancer in humans. The chemicals are released into the air and transported by the wind. As you see the wind is blowing right towards the Moss Point community where the people live. >> The only reason that these plants is here today is because they're in a poor black, poverty stricken neighborhood. >> When I was a kid we used to drink the water back in the 70s, 60s and the water purifier then we're nothing wrong with it then. But now there's something wrong with it. Everybody around here knows that, a lot of people are going to speak up because you know a lot of ain't going to speak up. >> I've been breathing Moss Point air for a very long time. And I got asthma at the age of five and everything is as I got older the asthma progressed. I have ten grandchildren, five of them are asthmatic and they are in and out of the hospital all through the year. >> This is my church, The Greater First Baptist Church. This church was originally established in 1879. We put an addition onto it on each side and as soon as I finished hurricane Katrina came and busted it half in two. [SOUND] >> This is the bedroom. It is like we're in the middle of a river. We are totally surrounded by water. [MUSIC] We've lost everything. [MUSIC] >> A few weeks after the hurricane, I was standing right over there on the porch of my church. I was looking out over a Moss Pointt and looking at all the devastation and all of a sudden out of nowhere, I heard the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit spoke to me and told me to call for a test on this environment. And I was just as happy and stunned as I could get. And I said, Lord, all of these people and you speak in the little me and In a broke down contaminated raggedy church. You could have spoke to somebody else. But he spoke to me and I moved with energy and chemist and biologist came in and conducted the test. [MUSIC] >> For over 40 years I've been sampling all along the Gulf coast in Florida all the way to Texas. I've tested air, water, sediment, sludge and found a whole host of very toxic chemicals. This is the Escatawpa River and the communities of Moss Point in escrow to live on the banks of this river. This river is hugely contaminated. One of the chemicals it's contaminated with dioxin, which is a cancer causing agent at very, very low concentrations. And it also builds up in the fish and the crabs, which the people along the river and those two communities consume. >> You, boil them and get them on down, I guarantee they're good eating. Yes sir, they might. >> As a result of hurricane Katrina, this whole area was subjected to the tidal surge that took the contaminated settlement out of this water body and swept it onshore. So when the flood water went down it left this huge coating that was highly contaminated on top of all the other contamination that was here. >> It came from that river and that's behind us and the sludge was in there about a foot deep. All of this was contaminated inside of this whole stretch. [MUSIC] >> When the water subsided, we had two to three inches of sludge and part of the house. I didn't think about gloves, a mask, I just got in there like I've always done, just got on my knees and hands and started scrubbing. >> After working in it for about three days myself, dipping it out, I took sick, ended up in the hospital. And I ended up staying out two or three days and my family took over cleaning up. They actually had to finish cleaning up for me and they took over that and the doctor advised me not don't go back cleaning up, just don't go back in there. [MUSIC] >> Ever since the hurricane, I'm having breathing problems, I'm in and out of the doctor's office with a chest congestion. >> I had seizures before, but there wasn't as bad as they are now since the storm. I believe, since the storm, my seizures and her seizures has escalated real bad because we both, I think right after the water subsided, we both started having them, just like together. I mean the same time we both was out on the ground having our seizures. >> I passed out a health survey to all the churches in the community and I asked them that they have a sickness or disease before the storm and have they contracted new diseases since the storm. >> We determined that prior to the hurricane, only 5% of the community was healthy, 95% of this community was sick and now that 5% is ill. So the entire community is very, very ill. >> I knew that I had to do something because the Holy Spirit spoke to me and I had to do something. And what I did was, I was proceeded to have a town meeting so I could inform the general public of the danger because it was breathing death and didn't know it. I cannot allow brother, this to be swept on the road. Not while my sisters and brothers are dying, not while my sisters and brothers are getting sick. >> [APPLAUSE] >> My aim was to get the citizens to stand up for themselves. If city leaders and officials is not concerned, we need to be concerned about ourselves. I don't want other people living in contaminated house. >> In Moss Point that hadn't been a lot of protests and the reason for that people on the payroll of industry. And you're not going to get up to make a protest against the one that's paying you. >> How are we going to be heard at the >> Thank you, forget about the paycheck, something can be done about it. >> [APPLAUSE] >> People have to have the courage to speak out and they get that courage from their churches and their pastors and the leadership that the church provides. >> We don't have the strength neither the finance but this is not ours is gone. Because of the leadership of the Holy spirit and the power of God I think we put the motivational spirit into the people. That's not right and leave them to die and then you go on past them. Because of industry, because of greed, man has polluted the waters, the air, the salt and man has to pay. Because it's a sin against nature and man is paying for that with his health. [MUSIC] I would like to help churches rebuilt, homes rebuilt, contaminated soil hauled off. I think that it's going to take 10 or 15 years. The strength that I have that gives me the perseverance is not human, it's divine. That power, that strength, that motivation comes from God. [MUSIC]
