Why did BHP Billiton choose our community (Oxnard/Port Hueneme) as the site for its dangerous, polluting, industrializing regasification terminal? To many, this answer is clear: because we are a working-class, heavily Hispanic community. There are different classes in this country, and the health and lives of our working-class, heavily Hispanic population just aren’t worth as much as the health and lives of the wealthy and powerful. This smacks of New Orleans, doesn’t it, where one has reason to question the perceived worth of the health and lives of the largely Black population. If 10,000 wealthy, powerful people faced drowning in New Orleans, you’d better believe the Federal Government would have responded quickly.
People in this community have been saying all along that we know why we were chosen, but Billiton has been denying it. I find it interesting that the Sept. 10 edition of the popular Australian newspaper, the Sydney Morning Herald, contains an article about BHP Billiton’s proposed regasification facility off our coast entitled, “California dreaming draws flak for BHP.” Here is a direct quote from that article: “BHP also was involved with a separate $1 million lobbying campaign which ran television advertisements hailing the benefits of LNG through an industry association last year. Part of BHP’s lobbying has involved labeling Cabrillo Port an ‘Oxnard’ project.”
This meant saying it was offshore from Oxnard, a majority-Hispanic, working class community 100 kilometers north of Los Angeles, even though it was closer to the posh beach community Malibu, home of Hollywood stars.
So BHP Billiton spent at least part of a $1 million lobbying campaign to label Cabrillo Port an “Oxnard” project because Oxnard is a majority-Hispanic working class community. If Billiton spent this much money to make it clear that they targeted us because we are a majority-Hispanic, working class community, then I think we ought to believe them. It could not be made clearer that, in our society, the health and lives of our class just isn’t worth as much as the health and lives of the wealthy and powerful.
Too bad it’s close to Malibu, too. But Billiton is spending lots of money trying to obfuscate that fact.
Dianne Safford
Port Hueneme