Who Is Responsible?

A farmer from rural Arkansas--from the Wright-Plum Bayou area of Jefferson County--got up before thirty-five or so other farmers who lived and worked nearby, and told them, "I don't believe this power plant over here belongs to Arkansas Power and Light Co. I think it belongs to some New York concern."

Another farmer stood up and told the gathering that, "I'm definitely against it because I don't think they can burn coal without hurtin' us." And a third farmer put into words the reason why he and thirty-five of his neighbors had taken time off from the business of farming and gathered together at the old school building: "We're trying to organize a group to find out how that power plant is going to affect us...our land...our environment...our livestock...our buildings and machinery."

What they were all concerned about was the coal-fired electric generating plant that Arkansas Power and Light Co. plans to build on the banks of the Arkansas River, about three miles from the homes and farms of the people of Wright, Redfield, Ferda, and Plum Bayou.

The power plant is going to be a 2800 megawatt facility. It will burn 27,400 tons of coal each day, and release into the nearby air (according to AP&L's estimates) 469 tons of sulfur dioxide, 14 tons of particulate matter, and 291 tons of nitrogen oxides each day. That's more than any power plant currently in operation in the United States. The power plant will be, according to the Arkansas State Dept. of Planning, "possibly the worst single source of air pollution in the world." It will certainly be a greater source of pollution than the infamous Four Corners power plant in New Mexico, whose emissions were the only sign of human activity that astronauts Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin were able to see from their Gemini XII space capsule.

In the Four Corners area, the residents of that desert region are talking mostly about the effect the power plant is having on the once beautiful vistas that the crystal clear air afforded. In rural Arkansas, residents are talking about the effect which the power plant is going to have on their economic livelihood. Rural Arkansas is cotton and soybean country, and scientific studies have long ago demonstrated the susceptibility of cotton and beans to damage by extremely low levels of sulfur dioxide in the air. The farmers of Wright, Redfield, Ferda, and Plum Bayou don't want to see their means of making a living destroyed by Arkansas Power and Light Co.

Arkansas Power and Light, which sells electricity to most of the state of Arkansas, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Middle South Utilities, Inc. Middle South is a giant utility holding company, which owns 100 per cent of the stock of (in addition to AP&L) Mississippi Power and Light Company, Arkansas-Missouri Power Company, Louisiana Power and Light Company, and New Orleans Public Service Inc. Middle South has its main office in New York City, and it is not run by the people of Arkansas, Missouri, Mississippi, and Louisiana, but by the New York banks and investment companies which have traditionally owned this nation's utility companies.

The New York banks and investment companies aren't the only institutions that own shares of Middle South. They own a lot, but the largest single shareholder of Middle South is Harvard University. Harvard owns 561,000 shares of the company's common stock, and the Harvard Yenching Institute owns another 16,668. At market value, that amounts to about $12,710,000. And, sitting on the Board of Directors of Middle South is former Harvard Treasurer George F. Bennett '33, whose State Street Investment Corp. owns another 350,000 shares of Middle South stock.

For the farmers of Arkansas, the fact that Harvard University and a number of New York and Boston banks can decide to put what might very well be the world's worst single source of pollution right smack in the middle of their fields is a little hard to take. The thirty-five farmers who met in the school house decided that something had to be done about the power plant, and so they organized themselves as a chapter of the only group which has had any success in fighting for the rights of low and moderate income Arkansas, a group called ACORN (Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now).

ACORN is a statewide organization of 4500 low and moderate income families, who are organized into over 38 local community groups from the Ozarks to the Delta. ACORN has been in existence for over three years, and during that time it has, according to one of its members, been "fighting to see to it that the state motto of Arkansas, 'The People Shall Rule,' rings true." Austin Scott of the Washington Post called ACORN "one of the most challenging organizing projects going right now," and went on to write about ACORN that "the name of its game is not welfare, or help for the unfortunate, or social justice, but power--prodding people who never thought they could do it into going after the power they need to influence events that touch their lives."

The problems that ACORN has done something about in the past three years include the following:

I ACORN exposed a property tax system which was overwhelmingly biased against low income property owners, and led a successful effort to reform the property tax system in order to increase the taxes of the wealthy and decrease the taxes of low income Arkansans;

I ACORN's Unemployed Worker's Organizing Committee led a campaign against the abuses of private employment agencies, which forced the state's Labor Dept. to take action against the employment agencies;

I ACORN has fought for and won parks, stop lights, better drainage systems, and numerous other features that help make neighborhoods better places to live, and which have long been the exclusive property of the upper classes in Arkansas;

I ACORN's Vietnam Veteran's Organizing Committee pushed a free tuition for vets bill through the Arkansas General Assembly;

I An ACORN group forced the Fort Smith city directors to pass an amendment on the sewer proposal that saved low-income families $150 each.

I ACORN fought for and won the right to have public representation at the University of Arkansas Medical Center;

I ACORN has organized successful tenant's groups all over the state;

I An ACORN group won a free busing service for school children;

I ACORN has elected city directors, school board members, justices of the peace, and state legislators sympathetic to the needs of ACORN members;

I ACORN has challenged the real estate interests in Little Rock to stop blockbusting; and

I ACORN is currently fighting the Wilbur Mills expressway which will go right through low-income neighborhoods in Little Rock.

And right now, ACORN is leading the fight against Arkansas Power and Light Company. The farmers of Jefferson County are out knocking on doors, getting their neighbors to take a stand, asking them to join ACORN and to join the fight to save their farms. "What's the power plant going to do to our source of income one, two, three or twenty years from now?" they are asking each other.

But, despite all this activity, the farmers of Jefferson keep coming back to the question which the farmer who wondered whether the power plant belonged to "some New York concern" was getting at. That question is, "Who is responsible for putting what is quite possibly the greatest single source of pollution in the entire world in the middle of our fields?" And the answer to that question, it is becoming more and more clear to these farmers, is not the "people of Arkansas." They're not entirely sure what the answer to that question is, but one answer which is increasingly being thrown around down in Arkansas is "Harvard."

After all, Harvard is the largest single shareholder of Middle South Utilities, the giant holding company which owns all the stock of Arkansas Power and Light Company. And Harvard is perceived as part of the Northern Establishment which has been trying to run the affairs of the South since the time of the Civil War. The farmers of Arkansas are politically astute enough to know that he who owns the stock pulls the strings.

Even more important, the farmers know that the strings can be pulled in more ways than one. They know that Harvard is in a position to see to it that if AP&L builds their plant they build it in such a way as to minimize the threat which the plant poses to the economic livelihood of rural Arkansas. Consequently, the farmers of Wright, Redfield, Ferda, and Plum Bayou, organized into the ACORN Protect Our Land Association, ask Harvard to exert pressure on Middle South Utilities to do the following things:

I Not build the power plant until the farmers of Jefferson County get a written promise from AP&L/MSU offering to pay for any damages which are caused by emission from the plant; and

I Not operate the power plant until effective sulfur dioxide controls are installed on the plant.

In addition, the ACORN Protect Our Land Association asks Harvard to:

I appoint a committee of students and professors to study the projected power needs of Arkansas in order to determine whether the power plant is even needed; and

I appoint a committee of students and professors to study the environmental and economic effects of the plant.

The two studies should then be substituted for the white-wash Environmental Impact Statement which AP&L drew up, and should become the basis upon which the Arkansas Pulbic Service Commission evaluates AP&L's application for a permit to build the plant.

ACORN and the farmers of Jefferson County, Arkansas, are offering Harvard, as the largest shareholder of Middle South Utilities, the choice of either acting in the interests of the people of Arkansas, or of acting in the interests of those whose only desire is to make money at the expense of the people of Arkansas. Harvard, which side will you choose?

Steven Kest '74 is presently working in Arkansas for ACORN.