Too Heavy the Load

Once government and the lawyers arrive in Rochester, a map will show the vast spread of Sherwin’s plume across Western Pennsylvania. Now as much a part of that region’s topography as the Appalachian Mountains and Allegheny Plateau, the chemicals of Sherwin’s greed forever covering that earth.

The plume from years of PFAS venting may stretch as many as 50-miles from Sherwin’s stack, depending on airflow patterns and topography.  In the range Pittsburgh, Penn Hills, Youngstown (OH) and Canton (OH), with combined populations of half a million souls, some of whom are breathing Sherwin’s aerosolized poison whether they know it or not.

At the tip of that plume will be a bullseye, the pollution’s point of origin and where the most damage has been done.  A circle with a radius between two and three miles, which is the acute zone for Methyl Methacrylate before it degrades into secondary irritants.  And inside that bullseye will be another, with Sherwin’s stack ensconced in the center of a circle with a one-mile radius. 

Living inside the bullseye her whole life is Patricia, whose name has been changed to allow for her privacy. Now just months removed from brain tumor surgery, “I’m one of five just on my street,” she tells me, with two more on the street adjacent making seven brain tumors that seven Patricia knew of. Plus two other I had uncovered and I'm counting nine brain tumors within a half a mile of that plant. 

Including Patricia’s meningioma, which peer-reviewed toxicology shows exposure to PFAS contributes to. 

“Those are just the ones that are still alive,” Patricia goes on to tell me.  “People die very young around here,” not knowing the science of how PFAS exposure accelerates aging.  Making it more accurate to say they died fast rather than died young, though I didn’t argue the semantics.   

Christopher (not their real name) also lives inside the bullseye, near to his father so that he can give care.  Though many days he can’t, lacking the energy to stroll across the street.  “We’ve never had a dog live past six-years” Chris tells me.  “Cancer, all of them” he says, as if I didn’t already know.  “I moved away from Rochester twice in my life, for two-years both times.”  “Both times after moving my headaches went away” Chris says, noting they came back when he returned. 

So that Heidi can get rich.     

Stephanie (not their real name) was the first person I contacted while investigating this plant, and while I cannot imagine turning my back on any of the victims of Sherwin’s greed, after meeting her I knew I found my calling.  A young woman, older than my own daughter but not by much, raising two children in Heidi’s fog.  Burden enough for any single mother, though living in such close proximity to one of America’s least ethical companies.  “It’s my fault if my kids get sick, I moved them here” she tells me, with long pauses between each sentence so we could wipe our eyes.   

“My oldest keeps his mattress in the hallway, the smell in his room is far too strong,” aware the move doesn’t make him any safer.

It’s in her worry for her children that this mother pulls my heart towards hers, her terror reminiscent of my own state while fighting off an evil in throes with my daughter.  A unique anxiety you can’t conceive until you’re scared for your child. Not worried that life can go wrong, terrorized because it did.  A fear which asphyxiates; carrying it for a week nearly ended me.

And now Stephanie lives it each hour, a burden I wouldn't even wish on Heidi.