Last night I listened to the horrifying stories of three people who survived the explosion of a carbon pipeline in Satartia, Missisippi. One survivor suffered significant memory loss. Another has worsening asthma.
Food and Water Watch Iowa and the Iowa Chapter of Sierra Club sponsored the event. Dan Zegart, who wrote the HUFFPOST article referenced below, described his research into the pipeline explosion and he interviewed three of the survivors during this event.
You can watch the recording of this here: https://fb.watch/aLKtjH1eyf/
What you can do:
The Iowa Chapter of Sierra Club has linked this phone number to the offices of leaders in the Iowa legislature: 888-793-4597
House leader Pat Grassley is a farmer from New Hartford, and Senator Jake Chapman is from Adel in Dallas County, He is an EMT.
You can ask your U.S. Representative to support Representative Ro Khanna’s End Polluter Welfare for Enhanced Oil Recovery Act
U.S. Representative Ro Khanna also spoke during this event. He is sponsoring the End Polluter Welfare for Enhanced Oil Recovery Act.
December 13, 2021 Press Release
Washington, DC – December 13, 2021 – Today, Representatives Ro Khanna (CA-17), Chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Environment, Raúl Grijalva (AZ-03), Chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, and Mike Quigley (IL-05), member of the House Committee on Appropriations, introduced the End Polluter Welfare for Enhanced Oil Recovery Act to repeal a tax giveaway that enables the fossil fuel industry to profit off capturing carbon emissions and using them to increase oil production.
RELEASE: KHANNA, GRIJALVA, QUIGLEY ANNOUNCE LEGISLATION TO REPEAL FOSSIL FUEL SUBSIDY FOR ENHANCED OIL RECOVERY
It was just after 7 p.m. when residents of Satartia, Mississippi, started smelling rotten eggs. Then a greenish cloud rolled across Route 433 and settled into the valley surrounding the little town. Within minutes, people were inside the cloud, gasping for air, nauseated and dazed.
Some two dozen individuals were overcome within a few minutes, collapsing in their homes; at a fishing camp on the nearby Yazoo River; in their vehicles. Cars just shut off, since they need oxygen to burn fuel. Drivers scrambled out of their paralyzed vehicles, but were so disoriented that they just wandered around in the dark.
The Gassing Of Satartia. A CO2 pipeline in Mississippi ruptured last year, sickening dozens of people. What does it forecast for the massive proposed buildout of pipelines across the U.S.? By Dan Zegart, HUFFPOST, August 26, 2021
Carbon Capture and Storage/Sequestration (CCS) is not the answer to climate change. Contrary to its proponents claims CCS is unproven, dangerous and delays real solutions to the climate crisis such as simple energy conservation, regenerative agriculture and renewable energy. Currently two such CCS Pipeline projects are being proposed for the state of Iowa — Summit Carbon Solutions’ ‘Midwest Carbon Express’ and Navigator CO2 Ventures LLC. We are a broad coalition of everyday concerned Iowans, Tribal citizens, environmentalists, lawyers and scientists who examen and share the science of CCS, S well as strategies for protecting Iowa’s water, land, communities and the future generations of Iowans in order to empower all stakeholders to make the case for good public policy
Carbon (CCS) Pipeline Resistance Coalition – Iowa
Join us Monday to hear victims and first responders share their experiences from the Satartia, Mississippi carbon pipeline rupture.The corporations pushing these projects on us are lying about the risks. Carbon is an odorless, colorless gas that can spread miles in mere minutes. Unlike the Satartia rupture, the Iowa pipelines will not have an added odorant. You might not even know something was wrong before being asphyxiated by the gas.Even if you did notice something off, it wouldn’t matter. There isn’t an emergency management crew in this state capable of addressing a mass carbon gassing. Your vehicle won’t run without oxygen. You will pass out. You might start foaming at the mouth. You may have seizures. You cannot escape it. And you won’t even see it coming.This is literally a fight for our lives. Are you willing to fight with us?
Food and Water Watch Iowa
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) members say everyday Iowans will fight back and resist any attempt to build a corporate oil and gas pipeline in Iowa that could threaten air and water quality and contribute to catastrophic climate change.
“Any attempt to build an oil and natural gas pipeline in Iowa will be met with resistance,” said Gary Larsen, an independent family farmer and Iowa CCI member with a wind turbine on his farm outside of Exira in Audubon county. “Catastrophic climate change is already impacting Iowa and we have to start keeping fossil fuels in the ground where they belong instead of threatening the air, water, and land of thousands of everyday Iowans just so a few energy corporations can profit.”
“We need to start conserving energy and taxing these big corporations for the pollution they cause so we can reinvest in alternative energy like wind and solar power.”
Iowa CCI is a statewide, grassroots people’s action group that uses community organizing to win public policy that puts communities before corporations and people before profits, politics, and polluters.
Iowa CCI members pledge to fight corporate plan to build another environmentally dangerous oil and gas pipeline in Iowa
My friends Rodger Ruth and Mahmud Fitil have an excellent discussion about these pipelines in this video.
Quakers and Mutual Aid 
One thought on “Survivors of Carbon pipeline explosion tell their stories”