In Chicago, nurses take up fight against petcoke piles

[herring_RN, ASN, BSN]

...The nurses union has joined local residents' fight to get petcoke transportation and storage banned in Chicago. They see it as a serious public health issue and part of their larger social justice advocacy mission...

... They are demanding a moratorium on petcoke storage and transport in Chicago, as the residents and nurses said in a press conference at City Hall following their tour.

Rolanda Watson is a family practice nurse at a clinic in Robbins, an impoverished, mostly African American Chicago suburb that is also home to heavy industry and near a now-shuttered oil refinery with a notorious record of pollution and accidents. Watson sees the petcoke as part of a larger environmental justice issue.

"The first thing they taught us as nurse practitioners is that we are advocates," Watson said. "We've been seeing a rise in respiratory illnesses. So many colds, sinus problems, bronchitis, COPD, pneumonias. People will say it's the weather, or something is just going around.

But babies aren't supposed to have asthma. There's a reason for all this."

Watson noted that the Affordable Care Act includes a heavy emphasis on prevention of illness through lifestyle improvements. "We're trying to do prevention at the source, to prevent future exposure and the illness it causes," Watson said....

http://www.midwestenergynews.com/2014/05/14/in-chicago-nurses-take-up-fight-against-petcoke-piles/