The World as Home

This feature is part of a series focusing on pieces in The Future of Nature, a book that is a compendium of the finest writing from Orion magazine and a crucial guidebook for the twenty-first century activist.

Sandra Steingraber grew up in Illinois, just downwind from an ethanol distillery, an aluminum foundry, a coal-burning power plant, two chemical plants, and a company that turns scrap metal into barbed wire. She currently lives in upstate New York. She is the author of Living Downstream and Having Faith. She holds a Ph.D. in biology and a master's degree in creative writing.

In "The Pirates of Illiopolis" Steingraber visits Illiopolis, Illinois, the site of a PVC plant explosion in 2004. Steingraber's essay in The Future of Nature and her book, Living Downstream, are both riveting accounts of the prevalence of chemicals in our lives and the steps being taken to contain them.  

 "I went to Illiopolis in June. I drove a rental car from my mother's house down what is now called I-155 and then took a series of blacktops through thigh-high corn until I crossed the railroad tracks.

    If you've never seen a chemical plant up close, you should. It's not enough to gaze down at one from the air or glance over your shoulder while driving by. You have to walk up to the fence line and stand there for a while. Once you recover from the sheer size of it—these facilities usually command thousands of acres—see if you can figure out what goes on there. It's not as inexplicable as the maze of pipes and catwalks makes it seem. There has to be a source of water, often a river, and a method of transportation, often a rail line, and a source of power. . . .

    I pulled off onto a gravel service road, got out of the car, and there it was. Twisted sheets of metal. Knotted piles of pipe. A blackened hull. A gaping hole.

    The storage silos were still standing. The hopper cars were still on their tracks. A field of corn hissed in the wind. I checked to see which way its leaves were blowing to make sure I was upwind from what I was looking at. . . . "

—Sandra Steingraber. From "The Pirates of Illiopolis," from The Future of Nature

 

Read more from "The Pirates of Illiopolis" in the excerpt featured below. Also, please check out the organizations featured for more about PVC and green building. The Orion Society, which publishes Orion Magazine, where Steingraber's essay first appeared, is also a featured organization.