On its Web site, the public relations firm Ann Green Communications says its services enable clients to “build open and honest relationships with stakeholders through effective communication strategies.”
Folks in the Kanawha Valley are probably wondering exactly how Ann Green’s recommendations to Bayer CropScience were going to do that.
Recall that documents made public this week by a congressional committee included pr firm President Ann Green’s advice for Bayer in dealing with the valley after the August 2008 explosion that killed two Institute plant workers and forced thousands of residents to take shelter in their homes.
I’m not going to dwell on Green’s suggestions that Bayer should try to “marginalize” The Charleston Gazette. You can read them for yourselves here. This newspaper has big shoulders, and we can take whatever criticism Green and her clients at Bayer want to offer.
But what about the rest of Green’s recommendations?
Well, there’s the nasty comments about Maya Nye, a valley native who has decided to try to get the local group People Concerned About MIC up and running again:
The old ‘People Concerned About MIC’ activist group, established in the aftermath of Bhopal, has been reactivated with an ominous new leader, Maya Nye (Does she look that ominous? Seriously). Ms. Nye is the daughter of a Union Carbide retriee and appears to have animosity toward the chemical industry. She has taken an adversarial approach from the beginning and is not retreating.
Older and more cooperative past leaders of the group (Mildred Holt, a retired teacher, and Pam Nixon, currently the Citizen Advocate for the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection) have chosen to take a back seat to the more aggressive new leadership. Ms. Nye promises to bring in outside agitators — something the older leaders had, heretofore, not been willing to do. Ms. Nye also has stated publicly she intends to campaign for the removal of MIC and phosgene from the site.
Well, to clear up the record a little bit. Shortly after the Aug. 28, 2008, explosion and fire, Maya invited Bayer officials to take part in a public meeting about the incident. Bayer refused. Then, the company held its own public meeting, one that was carefully controlled by folks from Ann Green Communications.
At Thursday night’s U.S. Chemical Safety Board meeting, local activist Jim Lewis told Bayer plant manager Nick Crosby (above, center) that the company wasn’t doing itself any favors with this kind of PR strategy:
Mr. Crosby said he wants dialogue with the community. If you want dialogue with the community, don’t pit us against one another. To pit Maya Nye against Mildred Holt is not right. That’s no way to create dialogue in this community.
I asked Crosby after the meeting if he had apologized to Maya Nye for this PR firm’s comments. He said he hadn’t. But Crosby did say:
“We are going to reach out to Ms. Nye and try to develop a relationship with her organization.”
Crosby added:
I’ve got absolutely no desire to marginalize anybody representing any of the people in this community. My desire is to work with all of the community representatives.
OK, then. When’s the next People Concerned About MIC meeting? We assume Nick Crosby will be there, right?
As for Maya Nye, she seems to be able to speak pretty well for herself, so here’s part of what she had to say at Thursday night’s CSB meeting:
I was a child when PCMIC was formed in the mid-1980s. I barely remember the Bhopal disaster, and I vaguely remember evacuating when the incident occurred eight months later in Institute that sent more than 100 people to the hospital. But I clearly remember the 1993 explosion near the MIC tank that killed two workers and sent many people to the hospital.
Sitting in my living room about a crow’s mile away from the plant, I felt a loud boom. I thought a tree limb must have fallen on our house until the fire truck went backwards down my one-way street announcing that a shelter-in-place was in effect and to close all doors, windows and turn off all air conditioners until further notice. Panicked, I called my father, a Union Carbide employee, to ask him if he knew what happened and what to do.
With no information, he told me to hang tight. It wasn’t until after I hung up the phone that the smell invaded my house. I called my father again, only this time I couldn’t get through. The phone lines were jammed as too many people were looking for information at the same time.
Frantically, I grabbed some duct tape and started taping up the cracks around the door and windows as they had taught us to do in school after the Bhopal disaster. It didn’t much work. Too many windows, too little time.
The smell had already invaded my house. So with a wet wash rag to my face, I sat with my dog, crying, hoping that my last phone call to my father wouldn’t really be the last.
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Ah, yes…”Marginalize” the CHARLESTON GAZETTE??
Fellow Readers, it goes to show you the lengths to which these dirty-dealing and vindictive executives and managers of these huge chemical conglomerates will consider and go to evade scrutiny and independent challenge.
Democracy thrives with a vigourous press penetrating and probing. No newspaper achieves greater success in informing and protecting the people of West Virginia than the CHARLESTON GAZETTE with its energised investigative journalists.
Who in the hell do these titans of toxins and their PR grifters think they are.??!..marginalising this superior paper and marginalising concerned groups of active citizens in fear and dismay?!
…funfun..
What a callous and cynical game plan for Bayer. I guess bad management deserves ill-advised, snarky PR.
DavidR, it’s been my experience over the years that the dirty job of PR consultants serving as employees or contractors of these huge distant chemical conlomerates is to disinform, propagandise, and muddle critical issues. They viciously target independently-speaking critics on highly personal levels, deploying every dirty trick in the books. They abet the secrecy and evasion of those they serve. Intransparency disguised as “open science” and CORE VALUE “integrity” is the sordidly cynical game they play.
The history of certain chemical conglomerates in this state is one cover-up scandal after another, much to the collective detriment of thousands of families living and working here.
…funfun..
Maya Nye is an intelligent, warm, generous woman of integrity. I got to know her when she worked at a restaurant in my neighborhood.
Shame on Ann Green. Shame.
Laughably, it looks like the only people the cynical Ann Green has “marginalised” to date are the bumbling and evasive executives of Bayer!
I agree enthusiastically with Elizabeth Gaucher as to Ms. Nye’s intelligence and integrity.
Maya Nye’s statement was eloquent and balanced and moving. Her single voice embraced not only the fear and frustrations of dealing with Big Chemicals, but the perfervid hope things can be made better and healthier and safer for thousands living and working in propinquity to the Institute plant. …funfun..
Maybe Ann Green was on our side afterall (because she sure has sparked one heck of a community dialogue).
Thanks Ann.
(Psst…. Bhopal Survivors coming to Institute Fri. May 1 @ 7pm- WVSU Student Union)
Readers,
We know from our blog management system that lots of folks with Bayer IP addresses are reading Sustained Outrage … so many one of the Bayer folks or someone from Ann Green communications would post an apology to Maya Nye here — that is, if they really don’t want to marginalize anyone, as Nick Crosby said.
Ken.
[...] [Read more →] [...]
I suffer daily from my toxic injury from methyl isocyanate while teaching at a school in Mississippi. No one should have to suffer the physical, psycological, and neurological effects of exposure to one of the most deadly chemicals manufactured. Almost as bad was the legal nightmare after the cover up by the school, roofing contractor, and even the community. For that reason, I am following these Charleston Gazette stories and cheering on PIMIC and Ken Ward’s advocacy.
My story is posted online. There was justice, even if it was Toxic Justice.
http://www.tulanelink.com/stories/swan_09a.htm
Without the Gazette the State would be a lot worse off. The deterents between complete take over by those who look out only for them selves is a free press and an informed public. What happened is an example of a “just trust us” mantra similar to the one our state legal system recites. When we have a more active and informed public we will begin to see positive change in West Virginia. We deserve better and we can get there from here if we rid ourselves of defeatest attitudes and we get involved in the political system to demand results .
As community relations consultants, the role of Ann Green Communications is to recommend the best course of action for the company to build a relationship with the community in which they operate. Nearly 18 years ago, they established the Institute CIC to open a candid, ongoing dialogue between the community and several chemical plants in the area–including Bayer.
The goal of any community panel or council is to allow community members and company representatives to come together and address issues of mutual concern and work together to achieve a relationship of mutual understanding. They may not always agree, but they can have an honest airing of issues–and the company can take the concerns of the community members and evaluate their effectiveness.
People are quick to say that Bayer wasn’t “open” with the community–but they’ve had a CIC in place in Institute for 18 years, and many of these people who are now calling for Bayer’s heads may have never attended a meeting. Communicating with the company and being aware of the issues makes for less confusion when protracted incidents DO occur.
Ann Green and her team of consultants were not encouraging Bayer to “marganalize” their interaction with the community–she simply recommended that they properly manage the People Against MIC group so that they did not dominate any forum and instill more fear in an already frightened community. There’s nothing valuable in beating the same issues into the ground repeatedly–and it’s never conducive to allow one group to dominate any discussion.
No company, industrial or otherwise, is perfect. All any communications agency can do is advise them in the best way given the information they have on hand. Ann Green is an intelligent woman of integrity and strong character, and I believe if you read her recommendation report linked on this site it will provide clarity on her guidance and clear up confusion caused by the media.
If you know Maya Nye, you know she speaks from the heart and with concern for others who cannot speak for themselves. Give ‘em hell, Maya.
I would be very interested in knowing other clients of Ann Green Communications. A visit to the site makes it appear they play both sides of the fence: if you’re a corporation having to deal with a public image, they want to help you; if you’re a civic organization dealing with a bad corporate neighbor, they’re happy to take your money and help out. Unfortunately, they prefer to keep their client list off the site, probably because of the tactics they employ.
I just thought it would be nice to find out who else employs Ann Green, perhaps they might like to find out how poorly Green has been advising Bayer.