Meet the Fathers Teaching Their Children About Preservation, Sustainability and Energy Independence
By Katherine Niemczyk
“People ask me, ‘Why are you fighting? There’s no point. They’re gonna win…’ But I’ve seen just in the year, year-and-a-half that I’ve been doing this work that there is power in people speaking up and speaking the truth of their own being and the experience they have living in this area that is dominated so much by oil and gas.”
James Hiatt never thought he’d work in the climate space. He didn’t think he was qualified to. Afterall, he’d spent much of his career working at oil refineries and on the docks receiving oil tankers in Lake Charles, Louisiana, a small city parked next to the Calcasieu River, just north of Gulf waters. But he also never expected to be a third-generation blue collar energy worker. Nor did he think he’d return to his Louisiana roots and put down his own in the very place where he was born and raised.
James is the executive director of For A Better Bayou, a community-based organization working to preserve the local environment. He’s also a dad of three, and it’s for that reason, he says, that he advocates for the transition away from fossil fuels, like natural gas.
“My kids rescued me from my own self in a way that nothing else could have, you know? They don’t know how much credit they deserve and it took all three of them… But to say I’d be doing this work without them. I’m not sure I’d care what happened in the next five minutes without them, much less what happens in the rest of my lifetime and the rest of their lifetimes.”
James says he’s deeply concerned about the country’s reliance on fossil fuels. Louisiana in particular is speeding up the buildout of LNG (liquified natural gas) export terminals, which — despite their reputation of being “clean” energy facilities — are largely responsible for methane pollution. Methane, or CH4, is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide (CO2) and has more than 80 times the warming power.
“There are seven gas export terminals operating in the country, and three of them are in Southwest Louisiana. And they want to put five more on this river.”
The problem, James says, is that many people in the community are convinced that LNG facilities would save the parish by bringing jobs and economic opportunity. But at what cost, James wonders. Just one facility, he estimates, offers only about 150 jobs and each facility is dodging billions of dollars of taxes due to exemptions by the state. For context, while many local households and properties have been waiting years for FEMA relief, the gas companies pay $0 in property taxes and — like other extractive industries — pollute the environment.
“We have a seafood advisory on our river. Basically if you’re between (the ages of) 18 and 50 and you’re a man and you’re feeling lucky, you can eat all the fish you want. Otherwise, you should only eat two meals a month of half a pound of fish.”
But, James adds, he believes the community “would fight tooth and nail” if they knew the harm LNG facilities would cause their region and the world.
“In places like this, we’ve just become accustomed to the suffering. ‘That’s the smell of money. That’s just the cost of doing business.’ And I push back on that. It’s not the smell of money. It’s the smell of cancer and shortened life spans. It’s not as dramatic as a mass shooting, but they’re killing us slow.”
And that’ll continue to happen, he says, if we don’t learn from our mistakes of investing in more of the same… Extractive, polluting industries, with better marketing tactics (aka “clean” gas).
“It does not matter what flavor the carbon is… When you know better, you’re supposed to start doing better. I don’t want to feel like the opportunities that I had, (my kids) won’t have. We’re limiting them.”
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“We want energy to become a right for everyone. Not only a privilege for those who can afford to finance or buy the solar system. It’s not about that. We’re transforming the energy landscape of Adjuntas.”
In a place where so much of the economy and industry is controlled by the United States’ government, Adjuntas in Puerto Rico is an oasis, thriving on self-sustainability and autonomy.
“We’ve been doing energy security for critical infrastructure like the fire station, the elderly homes… Energy security for entertainment… And for education. And energy security for communication.”
Arturo Massol is the executive director of Casa Pueblo, a community self-management project committed to protecting natural, cultural and human resources.
“We’re doing energy security for economic activation, and for justice. And that’s why the barber shop is operating with solar power and the bakery, the pizza place and the pharmacy and many grocery stores.”
He’s following in his father’s footsteps, continuing a legacy of work that preserved the community decades ago. Alexis Massol and his wife Tinti (Arturo’s mother) started Casa Pueblo in 1980, when the Puerto Rican government began pursuing a mining operation in Adjuntas that would have caused an ecological and social catastrophe on 36,000 acres of land. The community was resistant.
“They accused us of being communists, revolutionaries, terrorists,” says Alexis (Arturo’s father). “When we held the first anti-mining meeting, only one person showed up. It motivated us. The fear they had instilled in people isolated us from the community. It’s something very painful, and something I rarely ever talk about. I have a lot of memories of that repression that I never speak of.”
Government informants infiltrated the group and the family was followed by police whenever they left the house. But they persisted, and 15 years after they held their first anti-mining meeting, the government finally retreated, ending its pursuit of gold, silver and copper in the forests and farmlands belonging to the people of Adjuntas. The celebration brought forth thousands of supporters.
“We overcame it because for us it was an issue of ‘vida o muerte’ (life or death). The mining would equate to the physical destruction of the territory and of the Puerto Rican national identity.”
For the last 25 years, Casa Pueblo has focused on increasing self-sustainability, installing solar power systems on more than 400 roofs throughout the town. When Hurricane Maria ripped through the Caribbean island in 2017, shutting off power for millions, in Adjuntas, the lights stayed on. In the aftermath of the category 5 storm, the government vowed to invest in a more sustainable, resilient power grid, but still today the government backs a fossil fuel infrastructure. And Casa Pueblo remains an anomaly, a beacon of possibility.
“We live independently with alternatives that make us feel free,” says Alexis.
How do they do that exactly? It’s all about science, culture and community, says Arturo.
“Everything we do has to merge all three elements. Because knowledge by itself is not going to change anything… We know a lot about climate change. We have that knowledge and the science is out there. But nothing is gonna happen just because you have the knowledge that mining is bad, that global warming is happening. You need to embrace (it) and within your own culture, build a community. And when you have all three elements, now you have a social equation for transformation. That’s what Alexis calls it.”
The Casa Pueblo model is built on a foundation of honesty, respect, equity and equality, says Alexis. And of course, community and family. Of their father-son partnership, Alexis says they are friends first. He speaks of his son, who took over much of the responsibility in (2007), with pride.
“Our model is not about who knows the most or who does the most, but it’s collective… There was a handoff of responsibility… In a harmonic way, a beautiful process that allowed us to continue the work even after his mother, one of the founders, passed. And he will continue even if I’m not here.”
Arturo, a father now too, says he feels privileged to have grown up liking what his parents were doing. They inspired him to become a scientist. But a scientist with a focus on healing and restoring nature. And that’s why Casa Pueblo is less about protesting extractive industries, and more about finding alternatives.
“I’m proud to have Alexis as my father and Tinti as my mother,” says Arturo, gesturing to his dad. “We’re committed to following in their steps and pushing the agenda forward. So… Happy Father’s Day Alexis.”
