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Time to 1.5 | 8 | Prayers of Steel I
Episode 8 • 19th April 2022 • Threshold • Auricle Productions
00:00:00 00:46:51

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Speaker:

Beckett Martin-Fryscak: Threshold is made with the support of

Speaker:

listeners like you. Join us at thresholdpodcast.org.

Amy Martin:

Last night, I had a fleeting spiritual experience

Amy Martin:

with a cook pot. It was after dinner. We'd had curry. I was

Amy Martin:

doing the dishes, but instead of doing what I usually do while

Amy Martin:

cleaning the pots and pans, which is think about other

Amy Martin:

things, I found myself actually looking at the cook pot as I

Amy Martin:

cleaned it. It's medium sized with two handles screwed into

Amy Martin:

the sides near the top, a standard issue IKEA stainless

Amy Martin:

steel pot. Nothing special, really, but also maybe a thing

Amy Martin:

of wonder. As I said, the pot is made of steel, which is

Amy Martin:

basically highly refined iron, and iron comes from the dust of

Amy Martin:

exploding stars and asteroids that have crashed into our

Amy Martin:

planet. So this ordinary household item began its life

Amy Martin:

soaring through the universe and then became a chunk of heavy

Amy Martin:

rock lodged in the Earth's crust. Someone dug that iron ore

Amy Martin:

up and carted it to a blast furnace where it was liquefied

Amy Martin:

and further refined into my miraculous steel pot. It's light

Amy Martin:

and strong and easily cleaned. It can be heated up again and

Amy Martin:

again without breaking down, and it's built to last in a world of

Amy Martin:

single-use throwaway products. This pot could easily outlive

Amy Martin:

me, and eventually it can be melted down again and turned

Amy Martin:

into something new, because steel can be almost endlessly

Amy Martin:

recycled. I rinsed the pot and turned it upside down on the

Amy Martin:

drying rack, which is also made of steel, and then I started

Amy Martin:

looking around the kitchen. The tea kettle is made partly of

Amy Martin:

steel, and the thermos that I pour my tea into every day.

Amy Martin:

There's steel in the stove, in the microwave, in the sink, in

Amy Martin:

the silverware drawer. It's everywhere from the cars in our

Amy Martin:

garages to the International Space Station. We use steel to

Amy Martin:

build the skeletons of our skyscrapers and to strengthen

Amy Martin:

our own aging hips and spines, and we'll need more steel to

Amy Martin:

build wind turbines, electric vehicles, even the heat pumps

Amy Martin:

that Nick Mott was talking about a few episodes ago. The

Amy Martin:

infrastructure of a renewable energy economy requires a lot of

Amy Martin:

steel, and therein lies a problem, because making steel is

Amy Martin:

one of the most climate unfriendly, carbon intensive

Amy Martin:

manufacturing processes in the world. It's responsible for

Amy Martin:

about 10% of annual global carbon dioxide emissions. If it

Amy Martin:

were a country, the steel industry would be the world's

Amy Martin:

third largest emitter, after China and the United States. So

Amy Martin:

we both really need steel, and we really need to stop making

Amy Martin:

steel the way we're doing it now. Steel isn't the only

Amy Martin:

industry in this position. Of course, there are major climate

Amy Martin:

issues with the way we make all kinds of things, cement, cars

Amy Martin:

and clothing are three of the big ones, but hidden inside each

Amy Martin:

of these climate problems is an opportunity, because, as we've

Amy Martin:

heard from multiple guests this season, the key to progress on

Amy Martin:

climate is finding leverage points, places under the hood

Amy Martin:

are way up in the supply chain, where we can make changes that

Amy Martin:

ripple out and have an exponential effect. And steel

Amy Martin:

manufacturing could be one of those points. If this industry

Amy Martin:

could decarbonize, the emissions reductions would live on in all

Amy Martin:

of our cars, buildings, appliances and cook pots. So

Amy Martin:

we're going to spend the next three episodes exploring steel

Amy Martin:

as a sort of case study in industrial decarbonization.

Amy Martin:

We'll travel to two communities, one in the Midwestern United

Amy Martin:

States and one in northern Sweden, to meet people whose

Amy Martin:

future is bound up with the fate of this industry, people who

Amy Martin:

live in places that have been defined by iron and steel. But

Amy Martin:

as we learn their stories, keep in mind that this isn't really

Amy Martin:

just about steel, because if we want to prevent a climate

Amy Martin:

catastrophe, we don't only need to transform this one industry.

Amy Martin:

We need to change our whole approach to industrialization in

Amy Martin:

general, and that starts with examining how we ended up with

Amy Martin:

the systems we have today, who benefits, who pays the costs,

Amy Martin:

and how, or if, we might be able to do industrialization

Amy Martin:

differently in the future. Welcome to Threshold. I'm Amy

Amy Martin:

Martin, and don't touch that dial. Or do touch it and ask

Amy Martin:

yourself, is this made of steel? It probably is.

Amy Martin:

Dr. Malcolm Dick: A lot of these industrial towns would be dirty

Amy Martin:

and filthy and smelly.

Lori Latham:

Lead Poisoning was like a rite of passage when I

Lori Latham:

was in elementary school.

Lori Latham:

Dr. Matt Thompson: This is the thing, isn't it, with the

Lori Latham:

industrial revolution, it's the exponential increase in the need

Lori Latham:

for everything.

Francina Dominguez:

We are changing the chemical

Francina Dominguez:

composition of the atmosphere that had existed for millions of

Francina Dominguez:

years.

Amy Martin:

It's a warm September day, and I'm walking

Amy Martin:

north through the city of Gary, Indiana, toward the shore of

Amy Martin:

Lake Michigan. It's the fifth largest lake in the world, a 300

Amy Martin:

mile long teardrop shaped freshwater sea, and Gary is

Amy Martin:

perched right on its southernmost edge. But instead

Amy Martin:

of sparkling blue water and fresh Lake breezes. I'm

Amy Martin:

surrounded by the sights and sounds of industry.

Amy Martin:

Okay, I'm walking under the train tracks. There's the

Amy Martin:

platform going up to the train.

Amy Martin:

Just up ahead, I can see the entrance to a sprawling

Amy Martin:

industrial complex. It's called Gary Works, and when it was

Amy Martin:

built by US steel in the early 1900s it was the largest steel

Amy Martin:

mill in the world.

Amy Martin:

Okay, that's a train overhead.

Amy Martin:

The people of Gary have been riding the ups and downs of the

Amy Martin:

steel industry for over a century. This is a company town

Amy Martin:

named after Elbert Gary, one of the founders of US Steel. I pass

Amy Martin:

under the train tracks and the highway, and then I come upon

Amy Martin:

this sign.

Amy Martin:

No trespassing, private property, United States Steel

Amy Martin:

Corp. Violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of

Amy Martin:

the law.

Amy Martin:

Just to be clear, here I'm not out on the outskirts of town or

Amy Martin:

something. I'm walking on Broadway, the main drag through

Amy Martin:

the city, and right where you might expect to find a beach or

Amy Martin:

some restaurants with beautiful lakefront views, the public road

Amy Martin:

dead ends into Gary Works, and it is just huge. Gary Works

Amy Martin:

covers 4000 acres along seven miles of the lakefront, walled

Amy Martin:

off and owned by US Steel. I take a picture of the No

Amy Martin:

Trespassing sign, and then I get up on my toes and crane my neck

Amy Martin:

trying to catch just a little better view. And then I take

Amy Martin:

just one small step past the sign.

Amy Martin:

Oh, wow. You just barely come through and then you can start

Amy Martin:

to see these giant, hulking buildings in the distance. But I

Amy Martin:

believe them that I would be prosecuted to the full extent of

Amy Martin:

law, so I'm gonna get out of here. Hello!

Amy Martin:

A security guard pulls up immediately and rolls down his

Amy Martin:

window. He's friendly as he asks me who I am and what I'm doing,

Amy Martin:

but I'm not feeling super chatty.

Amy Martin:

Okay, then and off we go.

Amy Martin:

The story of Gary Works is, in many ways, the story of the

Amy Martin:

industrialization of 20th century America. The steel

Amy Martin:

produced here helped to birth the US auto industry, defeat the

Amy Martin:

Nazis in World War Two, turn the United States into a global

Amy Martin:

superpower and create the climate crisis. So I really

Amy Martin:

wanted to get inside and take a look around. I wasn't at all

Amy Martin:

surprised that US Steel didn't just let me walk in. It's

Amy Martin:

dangerous in there. We can't have people wandering around,

Amy Martin:

and they've got industrial espionage to worry about, but I

Amy Martin:

was a little annoyed that when I wrote to them ahead of time,

Amy Martin:

asking for interviews or a tour, they didn't even bother to

Amy Martin:

respond. But I did get to talk to someone who painted a vivid

Amy Martin:

picture of what it's like inside the Gary Works plant.

Mark Lash:

We always say the best representation you have in

Mark Lash:

regular media is Gotham City.

Amy Martin:

Mark Lash is the President of the United

Amy Martin:

Steelworkers Union Local 1066. He's worked at Gary Works since

Amy Martin:

1994 and the way he described the plant reminded me a lot of

Amy Martin:

the way poets and writers described the scenes in coal

Amy Martin:

Brookdale, England back in the early 1700s.

Mark Lash:

Very dark, big blast furnace structures, big

Mark Lash:

buildings with a lot of steam. And, you know, graphite in the

Mark Lash:

air comes raining down sometimes, and, yeah, lots of

Mark Lash:

smells.

Amy Martin:

I met with Mark in the union hall one night after

Amy Martin:

he got done refereeing a football game. He's a big guy,

Amy Martin:

and it's easy to picture him at work in the plant, suited up in

Amy Martin:

the armor of the steel worker.

Mark Lash:

Steel toed shoes, for the most part, flame retardant

Mark Lash:

pants, long sleeve shirts, hard hat, safety glasses, earplugs.

Amy Martin:

Mark says the iron ore used to make the steel here

Amy Martin:

at Gary work. This is usually mined in Minnesota, shipped

Amy Martin:

across the Great Lakes and smelted in enormous blast

Amy Martin:

furnaces. Then it's further refined from there and turned

Amy Martin:

into all kinds of things we use every day.

Mark Lash:

Appliances, cars, all the way down to Campbell's Soup.

Amy Martin:

Mark says he tries not to buy anything in plastic

Amy Martin:

or cardboard if he can get it in a can instead. Job security, he

Amy Martin:

says. That's why he lives here, and that's what drew his

Amy Martin:

grandparents here originally.

Mark Lash:

I'm of Serbian and Russian heritage.

Amy Martin:

Did they come over to get the job?

Mark Lash:

Oh, yeah, no doubt.

Amy Martin:

Like right off the boat, they came here?

Mark Lash:

Yeah, right off of the boat. Grandfather, on my

Mark Lash:

mom's side, made a stop in Pittsburgh for a little while.

Mark Lash:

Had some family there, but yeah, all over to here.

Amy Martin:

So were they kind of proud when you went to go in the

Amy Martin:

mill as well?

Mark Lash:

Well, that's the bad thing about living... Yeah, none

Mark Lash:

of my grandparents were alive by the time I hired into the mill

Mark Lash:

at 24.

Amy Martin:

This is a very common story in Gary. Almost

Amy Martin:

everyone I talked to mentioned friends or family members who

Amy Martin:

had died relatively young, often from cancers and lung diseases.

Amy Martin:

The steel industry has provided millions of people with

Amy Martin:

dependable, good paying jobs, but it's also given a lot of

Amy Martin:

those people serious health problems.

Mark Lash:

My grandfather did work at US Steel in a coke

Mark Lash:

plant. He died of black lung.

Amy Martin:

Mark's dad was a boilermaker who worked in lots

Amy Martin:

of different plants in the area. Mark says he was able to take an

Amy Martin:

early retirement, but he didn't get much time to enjoy it.

Mark Lash:

So he ended up retiring, I want to say '56, '57

Mark Lash:

and he lived a little bit longer.

Amy Martin:

When US Steel built Gary Works in the early 1900s,

Amy Martin:

they actually built their own hospital inside the grounds,

Amy Martin:

because they knew there would be so many workplace injuries.

Amy Martin:

Burns and broken bones were common. But a lot of the health

Amy Martin:

damage from working at the plant is more long term stuff that can

Amy Martin:

be traced all the way back to Abraham Darby's innovation back

Amy Martin:

in England in 1709. Darby was the person who first figured out

Amy Martin:

how to use the concentrated form of coal known as coke, to make

Amy Martin:

ironware. There have been important innovations in steel

Amy Martin:

making since Darby's time, but throughout all of the changes,

Amy Martin:

for over 300 years, we've continued to burn coke in blast

Amy Martin:

furnaces to make steel, and that's a big reason why the

Amy Martin:

steel industry is doing so much damage to the climate.

Mark Lash:

When you make coke, it is a dirty process, and you

Mark Lash:

take coal, cook it in an oxygen free environment, so it can't

Mark Lash:

burn, and you extract everything out of it, and you'd be

Mark Lash:

surprised how many chemicals are in coal, but what you're left

Mark Lash:

with is just basically pure carbon, and that is coke.

Amy Martin:

Mark says Gary Works doesn't have a coke plant on

Amy Martin:

site anymore, but mountains of it still get used at the plant

Amy Martin:

to produce what's called "virgin steel," meaning it's not

Amy Martin:

recycled. And here's a little quiz for you, if you had two

Amy Martin:

buckets in front of you, one holding a chunk of that newly

Amy Martin:

made steel and the other holding all of the carbon dioxide

Amy Martin:

released while producing that steel, which one do you think

Amy Martin:

would be heavier? Well, the answer is that the CO2 bucket

Amy Martin:

would be almost twice as heavy as the steel bucket. For every

Amy Martin:

ton of new steel produced, more than 1.8 tons of carbon dioxide

Amy Martin:

are released into the atmosphere. That means the

Amy Martin:

emissions generated while making my stainless steel pot weigh

Amy Martin:

almost two times as much as the pot itself. Knowing that, it's

Amy Martin:

not surprising that some studies say the steel industry needs to

Amy Martin:

cut emissions by a whopping 90% by 2050 in order to stay in line

Amy Martin:

with the Paris Agreement. So the steel making process is hard on

Amy Martin:

human health in two ways, first for the people who are working

Amy Martin:

in the mill breathing in that coal dust, and then later for

Amy Martin:

all of us, when the greenhouse gas emissions hit the

Amy Martin:

atmosphere. Mark says he works in the finishing mill where they

Amy Martin:

add various coatings like tin or zinc to the steel for use in

Amy Martin:

different products. And he says in that part of the plant,

Mark Lash:

It's hot, it's dusty, because it's dry, you know,

Mark Lash:

dusty, dirty. But then you get to the other end of the mill,

Mark Lash:

where they're actually rolling and putting water on and blowing

Mark Lash:

slag off, and you've got lubrication on all this stuff,

Mark Lash:

and that is loud, hot, humid and greasy. Instead of dusty on the

Mark Lash:

one end, you're greasy on the other, you know what I mean?

Amy Martin:

As I talked with Mark, I realized Gary Works

Amy Martin:

isn't a plant, it's actually a whole network of factories with

Amy Martin:

interconnected processes running 24 hours a day, seven days a

Amy Martin:

week. And Gary Works is just one of many industrial complexes in

Amy Martin:

this area. In 1890 John D Rockefeller's Standard Oil

Amy Martin:

Company built a huge refinery in Whiting right next to what's now

Amy Martin:

Gary. The Whiting Refinery soon became the largest oil refinery

Amy Martin:

in the United States. It's now owned by BP and is still running

Amy Martin:

so for a time, the biggest oil refinery and the biggest steel

Amy Martin:

plant in the country were right here. And there are more plants.

Amy Martin:

Mark ticks through the list that he was familiar with growing up

Amy Martin:

here.

Mark Lash:

You had US Steel South Works on the south side of

Mark Lash:

Chicago. Then going west from there, you had LTV, which

Mark Lash:

started out as Youngstown Sheet and Tube, then Inland Steel.

Mark Lash:

Right next to that, that was what kind of founded the city of

Mark Lash:

East Chicago. Then further west, you had Gary and US Steel Gary

Mark Lash:

Works, and that created the city of Gary. And then a little

Mark Lash:

further east from that, you had the Midwest plant that was until

Mark Lash:

much later, and Republic Steel, and then Bethlehem Steel. So

Mark Lash:

this whole lakefront here was nothing but mills and

Mark Lash:

communities that sprang up around the mills.

Amy Martin:

One of the main reasons why all of these plants

Amy Martin:

were concentrated here in Northwest Indiana lies just 30

Amy Martin:

miles up the lakeshore: the city of Chicago. Chicago was booming

Amy Martin:

in the late 1800s and early 1900s and steel was a big part

Amy Martin:

of its growth. The world's first skyscraper was built in Chicago

Amy Martin:

in 1885 using innovative building techniques that relied

Amy Martin:

on huge steel frames, and soon the city was a major hub of

Amy Martin:

steel-based architectural innovation. So steel helped

Amy Martin:

Chicago grow upward and also connect outward in the form of

Amy Martin:

railroads. In the late 1800s tracks were laid down from coast

Amy Martin:

to coast, and Chicago was at the center of the rapidly expanding

Amy Martin:

web. Wheat and wood, minerals and metals and millions of

Amy Martin:

people moved into out of and through Chicago, carrying their

Amy Martin:

hopes and dreams on the new steel rails. And in early 1900s

Amy Martin:

many of those people ended up finding jobs here in Northwest

Amy Martin:

Indiana, most of the people who were initially hired to work in

Amy Martin:

Gary were newly arrived immigrants like Mark's

Amy Martin:

grandparents and African Americans who came north as part

Amy Martin:

of the great migration. That was the mass movement of black

Amy Martin:

Americans looking for better economic prospects and freedom

Amy Martin:

from the violent white supremacy of the southern United States in

Amy Martin:

the early 20th century. So, many of the people who arrived in

Amy Martin:

Gary at this time had been through some struggle to get

Amy Martin:

there, and they were hungry for work. And when Mark Lash looks

Amy Martin:

at this history, he has some questions like, why were so many

Amy Martin:

of these dirty, often dangerous plants built just over the

Amy Martin:

Indiana side of the state line. He says he doesn't know this to

Amy Martin:

be a fact, but he can't help but wonder if some of the reason for

Amy Martin:

this might be...

Mark Lash:

Because Indiana's workers legislation is horrible

Mark Lash:

compared with Illinois. Indiana was a very, very employer

Mark Lash:

friendly state when it came to the laws of the state. Illinois

Mark Lash:

was not so much.

Amy Martin:

When he says "employer-friendly," Mark means

Amy Martin:

Indiana didn't have as many laws protecting workers. And I just

Amy Martin:

want to pause and note the language here, which is

Amy Martin:

definitely not Mark's invention. In the United States, laws and

Amy Martin:

policies that exempt companies from taking responsibility for

Amy Martin:

harm to their workers or the environment are often referred

Amy Martin:

to as "employer-friendly," and that says so much about our

Amy Martin:

whole approach to industrialization. Instead of

Amy Martin:

thinking of the health of the workforce and the surrounding

Amy Martin:

community as a shared interest, a common goal, we tend to

Amy Martin:

operate within a zero sum game paradigm where what's good for

Amy Martin:

workers is defined as unfriendly to their employers and vice

Amy Martin:

versa. And that's really weird when you think about it. We're

Amy Martin:

going to circle back to this in a future episode, so hold on to

Amy Martin:

that thought, but moving on for now, for companies like us,

Amy Martin:

steel, things were feeling very friendly indeed in the first

Amy Martin:

half of the century. The United States had become the world's

Amy Martin:

leading steel producer, and the wars in Europe only increased

Amy Martin:

the demand. More than half of the world's steel came from the

Amy Martin:

US in the 1940s.

Mark Lash:

And it's pretty much boom time after that. Getting

Mark Lash:

into the 60s and 70s, this place was running like crazy. In the

Mark Lash:

early 70s, was the most employment US Steel Gary Works

Mark Lash:

had we had 30,000 hourly employees in this mill.

Amy Martin:

But in the early 1980s the US went through a

Amy Martin:

major recession, and the steel industry was hit hard. Foreign

Amy Martin:

competition, especially from Japan, was driving down the

Amy Martin:

price of steel, and that, combined with inefficiencies in

Amy Martin:

manufacturing processes, began to take a toll on the bottom

Amy Martin:

line. Steel production in the US plummeted.

Mark Lash:

Everyone was going out of business. I remember at

Mark Lash:

that time walking into one of the heating pulpits out in the

Mark Lash:

mill, and the guy said, Hey, Mark, I looked up and he threw

Mark Lash:

me a quarter. I said what do you want me to do with this? He

Mark Lash:

goes, go buy me two shares of LTV and one of Inland. I was

Mark Lash:

like, you're kidding me? He's like, no. And you looked, and

Mark Lash:

for a quarter, you get two shares of LTV and one share of

Mark Lash:

Inland.

Amy Martin:

After a wave of consolidation of companies, the

Amy Martin:

steel industry bounced back, but a lot of steel towns like Gary

Amy Martin:

did not. And that is primarily because of mechanization. Tasks

Amy Martin:

that previously took many workers doing hands-on physical

Amy Martin:

labor can now be accomplished by one person pushing a button or

Amy Martin:

watching a screen. Gary Works went from 30,000 employees to

Amy Martin:

fewer than 4000 today, and this same pattern was repeated in

Amy Martin:

mill after mill. In the year 2000 the steel industry employed

Amy Martin:

just 1/5 of the workers it had in 1963, nationwide. But steel

Amy Martin:

production is still going strong. The mills are churning

Amy Martin:

out as much steel as ever before. They're just doing it

Amy Martin:

with far fewer workers. And that's how you end up with an

Amy Martin:

oversized industrial complex attached to a city drained of

Amy Martin:

its most precious resource: people. As I walked and drove

Amy Martin:

around Gary, I saw street after street full of boarded-up

Amy Martin:

businesses and abandoned homes. It's heavy. You can tell this

Amy Martin:

community has been through some really hard times, and you can

Amy Martin:

tell those hard times are not over yet.

Lori Latham:

You'll see blight, you'll see negligence and

Lori Latham:

degradation.

Amy Martin:

This is Lori Latham, and we'll hear more from her

Amy Martin:

after the break.

Amy Martin:

Hey everybody, this is Erika Janik, Threshold's Managing

Amy Martin:

Editor. Did you know that we have a Threshold newsletter? Our

Amy Martin:

newsletter is a great way to stay connected to Threshold

Amy Martin:

between seasons, find out what we're thinking about and what

Amy Martin:

we're reading, listening to and watching. So subscribe to the

Amy Martin:

Threshold newsletter today using the link in the show notes or on

Amy Martin:

our website, thresholdpodcast.org.

Amy Martin:

Welcome back to Threshold. I'm Amy Martin, and I'm walking

Amy Martin:

through a globally rare habitat called a black oak savanna, less

Amy Martin:

than two miles from the southern shore of Lake Michigan. Clumps

Amy Martin:

of tall grasses are sprouting up out of the sandy soil, and all

Amy Martin:

around me, elegant black oak trees raise their long, twisty

Amy Martin:

limbs up toward the sky. They form a beautiful canopy

Amy Martin:

overhead, an airy sort of latticework of branches and

Amy Martin:

leaves swaying in the breeze.

Amy Martin:

It feels foresty, but it also feels really open, and then it

Amy Martin:

feels really verdant here underneath. Lots of grasses,

Amy Martin:

little shrubs.

Amy Martin:

This place is called Miller Woods, and it's part of the

Amy Martin:

Indiana Dunes National Park. Sand dunes, wetlands, prairie

Amy Martin:

and this black oak savanna once met and mingled here, forming an

Amy Martin:

extremely diverse wilderness. And this park still boasts an

Amy Martin:

impressive array of plant and animal species. It's the fourth

Amy Martin:

most biologically diverse National Park in the country.

Amy Martin:

There's just so much life, like shooting up everywhere. There's

Amy Martin:

a monarch. Cool, so good to see them.

Amy Martin:

Mastodons, bison, wolves and mountain lions all used to live

Amy Martin:

here, and for more than 10,000 years, people have made their

Amy Martin:

homes here too. In fact, indigenous methods of

Amy Martin:

intentional burning are part of what made the black oak savanna

Amy Martin:

habitats what they are, or were. This kind of open forest I'm

Amy Martin:

walking through used to cover 50 million acres of the Midwestern

Amy Martin:

United States. Now only about 30,000 acres are left. The Miami

Amy Martin:

people were forced off of this land in the mid 1800s and some

Amy Martin:

were moved all the way to Oklahoma. Just a few decades

Amy Martin:

later, industry arrived. The US Steel Company, leveled most of

Amy Martin:

the dunes, filled in the wetlands, chopped down the

Amy Martin:

forests, and built an industrial complex so big it can be seen

Amy Martin:

from space. Miller Woods is a little postage stamp of

Amy Martin:

preserved land located less than a mile and a half from the edge

Amy Martin:

of the Gary Works complex, but it's so beautiful here, you can

Amy Martin:

almost forget how close you are to the steel plant. Almost.

Amy Martin:

This strikes me as a really good sound postcard of Gary, because

Amy Martin:

we've got the wind blowing through the oaks and all the

Amy Martin:

little bushes and grasses in this beautiful natural area. And

Amy Martin:

then we got the train.

Amy Martin:

I've never been in a place where nature and industry collide more

Amy Martin:

abruptly than they do here on the lower lip of Lake Michigan.

Amy Martin:

It's a startling patchwork of neighborhoods, pieces of the

Amy Martin:

fragmented Indiana Dunes National Park and gargantuan

Amy Martin:

factories, and they're all smashed right up against each

Amy Martin:

other with no transition zones in between. There's a lovely

Amy Martin:

city park in Gary with access to the beach, and if you look

Amy Martin:

straight ahead, it's just wide open, beautiful blue, Lake

Amy Martin:

Michigan. But if you look to your left, you see the Gary

Amy Martin:

Works plant, and to your right is the Midwest plant, also owned

Amy Martin:

by US Steel. I came to Gary to learn about how factories like

Amy Martin:

these are impacting our global climate. But spending time here

Amy Martin:

makes it crystal clear that we also need to be asking how local

Amy Martin:

communities are being impacted by industry.

Lori Latham:

You go to the beach, and of course, the beach

Lori Latham:

is beautiful, but in relation, you see that they saved just a

Lori Latham:

little bitty piece and developed and polluted the rest.

Amy Martin:

Lori Latham is the chair of the Environmental and

Amy Martin:

Climate Justice Committee for the Gary branch of the NAACP.

Amy Martin:

She's lived in Gary all her life and served in all kinds of

Amy Martin:

leadership roles. She's spearheaded tobacco prevention

Amy Martin:

efforts, directed the Gary Youth Service Bureau and led Gary's

Amy Martin:

parks department. Lori is the kind of person who looks around

Amy Martin:

her community, figures out what needs to be done, and then does

Amy Martin:

it equipped with a big smile and a gift for straight talk.

Lori Latham:

I mean, they use the Grand Calumet just as a

Lori Latham:

dumping ground.

Amy Martin:

She's talking about the Grand Calumet River, which

Amy Martin:

flows through the Gary Works complex. It's one of the most

Amy Martin:

polluted rivers in the country.

Lori Latham:

You should take a look. We have a bike trail. We

Lori Latham:

did a bird and bike where we were partnering with the Audubon

Lori Latham:

Society, and we biked along the bike trail on Fourth Avenue and

Lori Latham:

went to the Grand Calumet. There were no birds, but you can see

Lori Latham:

the sheen on the Grand Calumet river. And it was like, okay,

Lori Latham:

nobody reported this, but there's obviously some pollution

Lori Latham:

here. There is a sheen on the water, and no birds.

Amy Martin:

In 2020 the state of Indiana was third in the nation

Amy Martin:

in toxic pollution emitted per square mile. Gary Works has been

Amy Martin:

one of the state's top polluters for years, and other plants in

Amy Martin:

the area are often cited for pollution violations as well.

Amy Martin:

The city of Gary is also struggling economically. The

Amy Martin:

median household income is half the national average, and 33% of

Amy Martin:

the population lives in poverty, according to the most recent

Amy Martin:

census data. Some people might look at all of these issues and

Amy Martin:

just give up on Gary. In fact, a lot of people have. The city has

Amy Martin:

one of the highest percentages of vacant and abandoned

Amy Martin:

properties in the country, but giving up is not Lori Latham's

Amy Martin:

style. She wants Gary to have a better future, and she feels a

Amy Martin:

responsibility to help make that happen. That's just how she was

Amy Martin:

raised. She says.

Lori Latham:

I remember being six years old, knocking on

Lori Latham:

doors. You know, we would go door to door, making sure

Lori Latham:

everybody was registered to vote. So I was used to

Lori Latham:

organizing just about everything, and just figuring

Lori Latham:

that that was just the way to make change and to get things

Lori Latham:

done was through organizing.

Amy Martin:

But it's not just a sense of duty that keeps Lori in

Amy Martin:

Gary. She loves this place. She loves the people, the natural

Amy Martin:

beauty and her deep family roots here.

Lori Latham:

Yeah, my grandparents moved up here in

Lori Latham:

the '20s during the Great Migration. My grandfather, he

Lori Latham:

was from Louisiana, working as a sharecropper in Mississippi, and

Lori Latham:

moved up for a better life and for a job in the mill.

Amy Martin:

Lori's parents grew up on a street called,

Amy Martin:

tellingly, Industrial Boulevard.

Lori Latham:

In that area, which was the old historic like

Lori Latham:

Midtown central district, you know you would scrape the

Lori Latham:

shillings off of your window.

Amy Martin:

Wait, you said, scrape the shillings?

Lori Latham:

Shillings is what they call them. Think small,

Lori Latham:

gritty, but long, like shivers of steel that you could like,

Lori Latham:

you know, scrape off of the window.

Amy Martin:

So pollution from the steel mill was just a

Amy Martin:

regular part of life, and people put up with it because they

Amy Martin:

needed the work. Demand for workers was high, which meant

Amy Martin:

pay was good.

Lori Latham:

The mill needed so many workers. The issue was,

Lori Latham:

though, the racist hiring practices. If you walked in, as

Lori Latham:

you know, a European immigrant, you were usually offered a

Lori Latham:

skilled job. A blacksmith or even in the electrical fields of

Lori Latham:

the mill compared to a black person, and you'll get put in

Lori Latham:

the unskilled part of the meal, and in the dirtiest parts of the

Lori Latham:

mill around the coke plant or the blast furnace, those places.

Amy Martin:

Those workers were breathing in coal dust all day.

Amy Martin:

And her grandfather was one of them.

Lori Latham:

And so he worked in the meal for about 40 years

Lori Latham:

before he retired, died of emphysema. Never smoked a day in

Lori Latham:

his life, but died of emphysema.

Amy Martin:

Lori was a kid in the 1980s during that massive

Amy Martin:

downturn in the industry that Mark Lash was talking about, and

Amy Martin:

she says the fact that most black workers had been blocked

Amy Martin:

from developing higher level skills in the steel mills had

Amy Martin:

long term effects on the community.

Lori Latham:

That contributed directly to the way the black

Lori Latham:

community was able to respond when the steel economy began to

Lori Latham:

shrink. After you've been let go, you go into the employment

Lori Latham:

office and you say, well, you know, I got 30 years working in

Lori Latham:

the coke plant. I've been, you know, shoveling coal into the

Lori Latham:

blast furnace or something like that. Well, these are jobs that

Lori Latham:

only exist in the steel industry. So, you know, the

Lori Latham:

person in the unemployment office is like, I don't really

Lori Latham:

have any place to put you. Compared to someone who has 30

Lori Latham:

years working as a blacksmith, well, you can do that anywhere.

Lori Latham:

You can go get another job. These are transferable skills

Lori Latham:

that you can use.

Amy Martin:

Lori says most of the families she grew up with

Amy Martin:

were employed by the steel industry, either working

Amy Martin:

directly in the mill or in some related factory. So when hard

Amy Martin:

times hit, everyone she knew was affected. She watched her

Amy Martin:

community reel as they grappled with the changes that were

Amy Martin:

upending life in Gary.

Lori Latham:

That was a lot of my childhood around a lot of

Lori Latham:

workers talking about workers rights in the steel industry.

Lori Latham:

But then also, how do we build political power?

Amy Martin:

And as she grew up, Lori was increasingly aware of

Amy Martin:

how pollution was affecting her community too. It's not confined

Amy Martin:

to the steel plants. She says it's not safe to grow food in

Amy Martin:

your backyard soil in Gary. You're only supposed to plant in

Amy Martin:

raised beds with soil brought in from somewhere else.

Lori Latham:

The industrial pollution is just so heavy and

Lori Latham:

so invasive and so a part of of our living up here.

Amy Martin:

And when Lori was a kid, she says it was common for

Amy Martin:

her classmates to get lead poisoning.

Lori Latham:

Lead poisoning was like a rite of passage when I

Lori Latham:

was in elementary school. What would happen when kids would get

Lori Latham:

really sick lead poisoning, they would have to get their heads

Lori Latham:

shaved. But a lot of girls that the edges wouldn't grow back.

Lori Latham:

Edges is a real African American women's hair type thing, like,

Lori Latham:

edges are important. And there were so many girls who, you

Lori Latham:

know, had lost their hair, the edges didn't come back. And it

Lori Latham:

was, it was from lead poisoning, and that was just kind of like a

Lori Latham:

common story, a common narrative.

Amy Martin:

People in Gary have been living with the impacts of

Amy Martin:

industrial pollution for so long that these experiences have

Amy Martin:

almost gotten normalized, Lori says. But they're not normal, or

Amy Martin:

they shouldn't be, and these are not just historical problems.

Amy Martin:

Dangerous amounts of lead can still be found in the soil and

Amy Martin:

water in and around Gary and the steel mills in the area continue

Amy Martin:

to release it into the air as well. Lori says her friend in a

Amy Martin:

neighboring branch of the NAACP is working on something called a

Amy Martin:

tooth fairy project.

Lori Latham:

Where, you know, you collect kids' teeth and then

Lori Latham:

measure how much lead is in them to help measure their exposure

Lori Latham:

to lead. You know, well, just in that one project right, now

Lori Latham:

we're looking at public health, like how the environment, like

Lori Latham:

affects our physical bodies. But then there's also, you know,

Lori Latham:

racial justice, like, why is it that African American children

Lori Latham:

are so much more likely to be exposed to not just lead, but

Lori Latham:

other, you know, toxins, other environmental toxins.

Amy Martin:

So for Lori, workers rights, racial justice and

Amy Martin:

environmental health can't be separated from each other.

Amy Martin:

Whichever thread she tugs on first leads her to the others.

Lori Latham:

My dad would always say, if you see a good fight,

Lori Latham:

get in it. And it just became that, you know, the planet is on

Lori Latham:

fire, we need to do something. You know, folks are being

Lori Latham:

discriminated against, you know, we need to do something like,

Lori Latham:

how come folks on this side of the track experience certain

Lori Latham:

public health outcomes and folks on this side don't? We need to

Lori Latham:

do something about that. So the environmental justice work just

Lori Latham:

kind of became an extension of everything else I was doing. But

Lori Latham:

then I realized it actually, it was the work.

Amy Martin:

And it's not just Lori's work or the people of

Amy Martin:

Gary's work. Making these kinds of connections is central to the

Amy Martin:

work of averting the climate crisis, because the

Amy Martin:

destabilization of the climate is just one item on a long list

Amy Martin:

of ways that our industrial processes are causing real harm,

Amy Martin:

and they're all interrelated. Earlier this season, we talked

Amy Martin:

about how the impacts of climate change are hitting some

Amy Martin:

communities harder than others. How wealth and privilege can act

Amy Martin:

as shields at least temporarily. This is what people mean when

Amy Martin:

they say climate injustice, but that almost makes it sound like

Amy Martin:

a new phenomenon, when actually it's just another version of the

Amy Martin:

same inequality that allows me to enjoy my stainless steel pot

Amy Martin:

while suffering none of the negative consequences involved

Amy Martin:

in making it. The costs and benefits of our industrial

Amy Martin:

processes have never been distributed evenly. As people in

Amy Martin:

Gary know all too well.

Lori Latham:

We're talking easily one of the richest

Lori Latham:

corporations in the world, living in a city with some of

Lori Latham:

the nation's poorest people, and I don't like to negate US

Lori Latham:

Steel's responsibility for that.

Amy Martin:

Right now, a lot of people are thinking seriously

Amy Martin:

about how our industrial processes are damaging the

Amy Martin:

climate, but long before anyone knew about that, people in Gary,

Amy Martin:

like people in other manufacturing cities all over

Amy Martin:

the world, could see how industry was damaging their air,

Amy Martin:

soil, water, and even their own bodies. And from that

Amy Martin:

perspective, the climate crisis looks more like a symptom, not

Amy Martin:

the disease. To get to the root of the problem here, maybe we

Amy Martin:

need to think about a lot more than just reducing the amount of

Amy Martin:

carbon dioxide being released into the air. Maybe we need to

Amy Martin:

examine how we're thinking about people and places and power.

Lori Latham:

And I think for me, it's so personal, because again,

Lori Latham:

you know, my grand, my grandfather, retired from that

Lori Latham:

plant, died, you know, from working in that plant. It has

Lori Latham:

marked so much of our history as a city, you know, and not just

Lori Latham:

Gary, right, but people came from all over the world to work

Lori Latham:

in in that plant, to make that plant profitable, and have

Lori Latham:

contributed to it being what it is.

Amy Martin:

Lori says sometimes friends and family members who

Amy Martin:

have left Gary question her choice to stay, and she says

Amy Martin:

sometimes she questions it too, but for now, she and her husband

Amy Martin:

are raising their three kids here, and they prioritize

Amy Martin:

getting them outside and appreciating the natural beauty

Amy Martin:

of the area.

Lori Latham:

I can ride my bike to the beach, and then we spend

Lori Latham:

a lot of time in the National Park, hiking to the beach. So

Lori Latham:

they know that part, and they love that part. But then they

Lori Latham:

also ask questions like, Mommy, why is Gary so dirty, you know,

Lori Latham:

they use the term "raggedy," like, why is the city raggedy?

Amy Martin:

How do you answer that?

Lori Latham:

You know, we got a lot of work to do. That's why

Lori Latham:

we're here to help, you know, rebuild the city.

Amy Martin:

We need to rebuild many communities all over the

Amy Martin:

world that have been polluted and hollowed out by industry,

Amy Martin:

and we need to prevent more places from being subjected to

Amy Martin:

what Gary is going through. So the real question here is not

Amy Martin:

just, how do we decarbonize the steel industry, it's, how do we

Amy Martin:

do industrialization differently? Can we? Is it

Amy Martin:

possible to make the things we want and need without

Amy Martin:

disregarding people and contaminating places? That's the

Amy Martin:

driving question behind this subset of episodes about the

Amy Martin:

steel industry. We're calling them prayers of steel, parts one

Amy Martin:

through three, in reference to a poem by Carl Sandburg, the first

Amy Martin:

four lines go like this, "Lay me on an anvil. O God. Beat me and

Amy Martin:

hammer me into a crowbar. Let me pry loose old walls. Let me lift

Amy Martin:

and loosen old foundations." What are the true foundations of

Amy Martin:

our industrial processes, and can they be lifted and loosened

Amy Martin:

and shaped into something new? We'll pick up the story there.

Amy Martin:

Next time on Threshold.

Hannah Beth:

I'm Hannah Beth from Oakland, California.

Hannah Beth:

Reporting for this season of Threshold was funded by the Park

Hannah Beth:

Foundation, the High Stakes Foundation, the Pleiades

Hannah Beth:

Foundation, NewsMatch, the Llewellyn Foundation, Montana

Hannah Beth:

Public Radio and listeners. This work depends on people who

Hannah Beth:

believe in it and choose to support it. People like you.

Hannah Beth:

Join our community at thresholdpodcast.org.

Amy Martin:

This episode of Threshold was produced and

Amy Martin:

reported by me, Amy Martin, with help from Nick Mott and Erika

Amy Martin:

Janik. The music is by Todd Sickafoose. The rest of the

Amy Martin:

Threshold team is Caysi Simpson, Deneen Weiske, Eva Kalea, Sam

Amy Martin:

Moore, and Shola Lawal. Our intern is Emery Veilleux. Thanks

Amy Martin:

to Sarah Sneath, Sally Deng, Maggy Contreras, Hana Carey, Dan

Amy Martin:

Carreno, Luca Borghese, Julia Barry, Kara Cromwell, Katie

Amy Martin:

deFusco, Caroline Kurtz and Gabby Piamonte. Special thanks

Amy Martin:

to Beckett Martin-Fryscak, Hanna Moser and Cale Bergschneider. If

Amy Martin:

you're interested in reading the full poem called "Prayers of

Amy Martin:

Steel," you can find it on our website, along with another

Amy Martin:

Sandburg poem I really love, called "The Mayor of Gary." Carl

Amy Martin:

Sandburg wrote quite a bit about this part of the world and about

Amy Martin:

how working people helped to make the United States a leading

Amy Martin:

industrial nation. So go to thresholdpodcast.org to find

Amy Martin:

those poems and our recommendations for further

Amy Martin:

reading about every episode this season. You can sign up for our

Amy Martin:

newsletter while you're there, and then you'll get those

Amy Martin:

recommendations delivered directly to your inbox. Find all

Amy Martin:

of that and more at thresholdpodcast.org.

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