Fruit of the Orchard
Winona is a rural Texas community of 500 people living downwind of a toxic-waste injection-well facility built in 1982. Photographs of these residents and their community reveal tragic human results believed to be associated with toxic emissions and contaminations by the American Ecology Environmental Services toxic-waste facility (formerly known as Gibraltar).
The community was originally told that Gibraltar would install a salt-water injection-well facility and plant fruit orchards on the remaining land. Instead, trucks and trains from all over the U.S. and Mexico came to Winona to dump toxic waste into the open-ended wells. No fruit orchards were ever planted.
It was not until 1992, when the residents began to fear the long-term effects of the various emissions and odors emanating from the facility, that Phyllis Glazer formed Mothers Organized to Stop Environmental Sins (MOSES). In March 1997, the facility announced its shutdown, citing continued opposition by MOSES as the reason.
Winona children suffer numerous health problems: birth defects, rare tumors and cancers, stunted growth, brain and liver damage, kidney malfunction and failure, skin discolorations, immune deficiencies, and chromosomal abnormalities (genetic mutations). Most residents attribute many unexplained illnesses and some deaths to the American Ecology facility.
© 1997 Phyllis Glazer and Bianca
The community was originally told that Gibraltar would install a salt-water injection-well facility and plant fruit orchards on the remaining land. Instead, trucks and trains from all over the U.S. and Mexico came to Winona to dump toxic waste into the open-ended wells. No fruit orchards were ever planted.
It was not until 1992, when the residents began to fear the long-term effects of the various emissions and odors emanating from the facility, that Phyllis Glazer formed Mothers Organized to Stop Environmental Sins (MOSES). In March 1997, the facility announced its shutdown, citing continued opposition by MOSES as the reason.
Winona children suffer numerous health problems: birth defects, rare tumors and cancers, stunted growth, brain and liver damage, kidney malfunction and failure, skin discolorations, immune deficiencies, and chromosomal abnormalities (genetic mutations). Most residents attribute many unexplained illnesses and some deaths to the American Ecology facility.
© 1997 Phyllis Glazer and Bianca