a proposed canadian underground radioactive nuclear waste repository off michigan s shore. these fights happen all over the country all time with companies that seem to only get more powerful. who wins these fights? and when it is the people who win these fights against the companies, how is it that the people win them? what makes for good strategy in fights like this? joining us, rasheeda, representative, whose district includes the area of the state where the pet coke has been stored. thank you for being with us. thank you for having me. can you describe what it s been like to have this giant three-their pile of pet coke in your neighborhood in part of your district? it s four stories high and it s complete reckless disregard for hardworking people who are really struggling today to keep their neighborhood together and didn t deserve to have toxic dust lining up their homes,
the coke piles that remain will be covered until they can be transported away. state representative rasheeda, said, quote, the mayor agreed with concern it needed to be covered immediately so it s not flying all over our may neighborhood. age-old question in politics about the balance of power between the people and rich corporate interests, right? i mean, in our age, the richest corporate interests are energy companies. oil companies are the most profitable industry ever known in the history of keeping track of human profit. what is the balance of power in our country right now between us and them? between oil companies and us who live with what they do? in southern texas, and in west texas, it is local residents seeing their roads ground to dust. in detroit, the pet coke piles have to be moved by tuesday, but tonight in michigan also, two democratic state legislators are convening a town hall meeting to deal with the next one of these messes. the proposed dumping of canadian nuclear
confirmed the dust, indeed, contained pet coke. that same building in detroit also happens to house the office of a local state legislator named rasheeda talid. she told the press, i ve seen complete chaos with pet coke flying everywhere. the company storing the pet coke on that site on the riverbank never bothered to get a permit to store it there. after months of wrangling with the city, detroit officials have now finally had enough. detroit s mayor may not have much power anymore, now that the city is controlled by an emergency manager, but the mayor has, never thels, ordered those pet coke piles be removed by the 27th. if they fail to remove them by the deadline, quote, we ll come down and padlock the facility. the koch brother facility plan to move the pet coke piles to ohio. the urging of local detroit residents and representatives,