The Farber Company Picnic

Each spring, Farber Corporation paid for the employee appreciation picnic and crawfish boil. The admin staff rented the city park, scheduled an inter-unit softball tournament, and bought enough food for a small army. There were about 2300 employees plus their families, less the 100 left running the plant today. The chief environmental engineer, Collin Peterson wasn’t a fan of the crawfish, the spice was a bit much for his Philadelphian tastes. But no one here in south Texas knew what a Philly Cheesesteak should taste like, so he would let them have their little spice bugs. His wife, Sophia was chatting with some of the other wives. It was good to see her smiling, he was worried that the move was a bit much for her, leaving her tight knit family.

Riley walked over. “We’re scheduled to play at 3:00. Want to do some batting practice?”

“I probably need to.” He followed Riley over to the softball fields. A few other were already tossing balls and having a fielding practice on the four fields arranged to the home plates were all in the center.

Collin grabbed a bat and stood tall in the batter’s box. As Riley pitched to him, he connected and sent the new white softballs into the outfield, fueling the fielding practice. The office team’s first game was against the No. 2 Unit, defending champions, as they announced at each meeting. Collin swung again, sending this ball straight back at Riley.

“Hey, I’m on your team. Save that for No. 2!” Riley yelled.

“Yeah, but if they get hurt, guess who gets to run the tower?” Collin jumped as he heard Doug’s voice at his elbow.

“Sneaking up on me, boss?” Collin teased the new plant manager.

“Actually, I need you to handle something.” Doug pointed out to the parking lot. A TV news truck had just pulled up and Collin counted about thirty people walking in a small circle with signs.

“I can’t read the signs from here,” Collin said, handing Doug the bat.

“Me neither. But I think Kowalski’s son is heading it up.”

“The city manager? Why?”

“No, the younger son. Larry. The one with the degree from the University of Texas in tree hugging.” Doug patted Collin on the back. “Go. Work your magic.”

Collin shrugged his shoulders, then started walking off towards the small crowd. The picnickers didn’t seem to notice the disturbance. He felt confident that he could get them out of the park and into his office during the week. He could debate better on his own turf. As he got closer, he could read the picket signs: “Visit South Texas, but don’t drink the water!” “Farber kills families,” “Clean up you act or get out of town!” and his favorite, “Welcome to the Cancer Coast! Sun, Surf and Sarcomas!”

The people carrying the picket signs all looked to be young college age environmentalists, the ones that look for place to picket as a hobby. They were joined by a few of the families that lived in the neighborhoods in the Farber plant’s backyard, probably all recruited by Larry Kowalski. A photographer was taking pictures and the TV crew was filming. Collin saw that obnoxious reporter from the other day talking to Larry, standing too closely to be professional. Great, they’re friends, that’s all I need, Collin thought.

Collin took a deep breath, practiced a friendly smile, and walked up to Larry with an outstretched hand.

“Larry, isn’t it? Collin Peterson. I’m a neighbor of your parents.”

“I know who you are. And you can’t ask us to leave, we’re on public roads.”

“Oh, no, I wasn’t going to do that. But I saw you out here and it seems you have some concerns you would like addressed. I came to if we could set up a meeting to talk about your questions.”

“Oh really? You will tell us the truth about how much toxic shit you’re pumping into our air and water?”

“Any chemicals that are released are well within the EPA limits, I assure you.” Collin concentrated on standing tall and confident. He would not get angry and defensive. Emotions were for the lunatic picketers.

“Funny, that’s not what three independent labs thought when we sent them soil and water samples.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out some folded paper.

“Three independent labs trespassed and took samples without our consent and I’m supposed to respect the results?”

“No, we took sample from the yards of some of these good people here and from the public waterways..”

“Other companies dump into the public waterways.” Collin interrupted. “They are, by definition, public.”

“And sent them off to labs in California, New Jersey and Houston. All three agree that the levels of Benzene and ethylbenzene in the soil and water indicate release amount that are well above the EPA guidelines.”

“You are welcome to look into the release reports we send to the EPA quarterly. We are in full compliance.” Collin crossed his arms. Kowalski was probably upset about his father’s recent cancer diagnosis, but as a Farber employee, he had excellent medical benefits.

“Those figures are self reported, aren’t they?”

“There are a lot of chemical plants in the nation, my friend. The government doesn’t have time to go test each one. And you wouldn’t want to pay for it, trust me. Farber reports in compliance with the EPA guidelines. I write those reports myself.”

“And that’s all you have to say about it?”

“This isn’t really a good time and place to discuss this. Perhaps we can get together and have a meaningful talk about all of your concerns this week in my office…” Collin wished he had his pocket calendar with him to set up the meeting, but who brings calendars to a picnic?

“Cone on, there’ll never be a better time or place. All those well-paid Farber employees, who make sure they live at least thirty miles away, having fun with their families, while the people who live near the plant bury their families from lung and brain cancers. The picture of corporate responsibility, huh?” The crowd around them grumbled in agreement.

“You are out of line here, Kowalski. Call my office and we can have a reasonable discussion when I have data available.”

“I have all the data I need. You just need time to circle the wagons.”

“I’m from Pennsylvania. We don’t circle the wagons. We discuss differences calmly and rationally. We are professionals. And if you would like me to take you and your concerns seriously, you will at least act like professionals. Take your circus act home and call my office to set up a meeting.” Collin glanced back. He would much rather be practicing softball than dealing with these fools.

“We won’t be dismissed. This is public land.” A woman stood behind Larry said.

Collin laughed. “This is not some vast conspiracy to kill off people and hide the truth. Honestly,” Collin shook his head,” you people have been reading too many Grisham novels. Why don’t you look at the real world? Farber provides 2300 jobs and pumps $125 million dollars into the economies of Victoria, Port Lavaca and the surrounding areas each year. Not to mention the fact that we keep Jose’s Café in business,” Collin said, winking at Jose’s cook, standing in the crowd. The cook looked down at his shoes. Collin stood taller. “We are not the evil empire. If you have questions, we will answer them, we’ve nothing to hide. Believe me, killing employees and local residents is bad for business, don’t need an MBA to know that.”

“Don’t patronize us,” Larry said, “we’re making a formal complaint to the EPA.”

 “Actually, the EPA just finished an investigation of us about some reporting inconsistencies. They found nothing to be concerned about. Barely a trace of anything, which is why I’m worried about non-scientists gathering bad samples for these independent labs. Larry, you’re a not chemist.” Collin thought about the samples he had sent to the EPA, straight from his own backyard.

 “I don’t need any results,” Larry took a step towards Collin. “I want the truth.”

“The truth is that your father has cancer and you are looking for a bad guy to blame. And that’s perfectly natural, people do that all the time. But your father knows what things he’s been exposed to over the years. It’s hard to work in the chemical business for thirty years and not be exposed to some bad stuff. But Farber has done everything in its power to insure the safety of its employees. As soon as a danger has been exposed, it has been dealt with.” Collin stared at Larry. “I’m truly sorry for your father. But I need to go beat his team in a softball game right now, so call the office and set up a time. Please. I want to help you.”

Larry said nothing. He looked around the picket lines and turned to walk towards his car. The TV crew began to pack up their equipment. The news anchor walked over to ask Collin a question.

Megan walked over to Larry. “He’s smooth,” she said, putting a hand on Larry’s arm.

“Well, he may have squelched the battle, but we’ll win the war.”

Collin walked slowly back to the picnic. He saw Doug watching for him and waved. Doug walked out to meet him.

“You seemed to have dispersed them well enough.” Doug said. Collin couldn’t see Doug’s eyes behind the dark sunglasses, but the smile was big.

“For today. I’m sure they’ll be at the office this week. Kowalski’s son is the ringleader. He’s not giving up easily.”

“He’s just upset over his father’s cancer. Once Jim is through the treatments and in remission, this will all blow over.”

“I hope so. They’re threatening to file a complaint with the EPA.”

“So what else is new? We’re clean with them aren’t we?”

“The last samples we sent passed with flying colors. We’re fine as long as we get to send our own samples.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean my back yard has no benzene or ethylbenzene.”

Doug laughed. “I was wondering how the hell you managed to get us a clean sample.”

“I’m thinking of inviting Terry Thurman from the EPA to the next meeting with Kowalski. Beat them to the punch.”

“Have our EPA guy there rather than some gung ho rookie, you mean.” Doug looked over the picnic. Someone had just had a big hit at the softball game and the spectators were cheering. “Looks like No. 2 is winning again. That’ll mean they’ll be in a good mood all week.”

“Yeah, about Thursday night,” Collin moved between Doug and the picnic, “we should think about rescheduling the release.”

“Smith’s got it all set. The right operators and engineers on duty. We need to get rid of this shit before the OSHA inspection.”

“I know, but with all the stuff going on, I’m not sure this is a good time for a non-documented release. Maybe we should move it to daytime and do it by the books this time around.”

“Yeah, right. And maybe we should invite Kowalski and his tree hugging friends to come watch. We’ve got to release 2.8 million units of this shit. It can’t be in broad daylight and it can’t be reported, we’re nearly over our limit. Thursday at 2am is the best time. We’ve already got the cash out last week for the bonuses.”

“Last week?”

“It was with all the picnic money. Looked inconspicuous that way.”

“Doug, you’re getting awfully sneaky. Where do you learn this stuff?”

“My wife. She sneaks out clothing money with her grocery money. She doesn’t know I’m on to her. Let’s get back and cheer on No. 2. We want them happy Thursday night!”