The Journal

Issue date: 5/1/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Colin Dabbs Diane Wilson, a native of Seadrift, Texas, talks April 25 in Sverdrup Room 101 about her life as a shrimp boat captain and how pollution has affected her business.

When Diane Wilson began her legal battle against the Formosa Plastics Corporation, she never realized how drastically her life would change. She didn't have any long-term goal other than to stop the pollution of the bay where she and three generations of her ancestors had fished.

Wilson, a fourth-generation shrimp-boat captain and mother of five, started her fight for her hometown of Seadrift, Texas, when she learned that she was not only living in the most polluted county in Texas, but that a multi-million dollar corporation would soon be opening a new chemical plant, deemed unsafe in Taiwan, in the area. Taiwan is a country noted for its lax anti-pollution legislation.

"Gandhi said that when a door opened, he always accepted it and walked through it. He said that he didn't always know where it was going to or why he was doing it," Wilson said. "That's pretty much the way I do things, too. I work from a different perspective. I've been a fisherman all my life, and I've learned to trust my instincts and my intuition."

After meeting failure through proper legal channels, Wilson began a one-woman hunger strike in an attempt to get the corporation to institute a policy that would prevent chemical plant waste from pouring into the bay. This gained sympathy for her cause, but still wasn't enough.

In a final act, Wilson said she had her boat towed to the water in front of the chemical dump site with the intention of sinking it. To prevent the protest from going through, the Coast Guard was notified. As the Coast Guard towed Wilson's boat away, several other fishermen arrived in the area, prompting an unexpected protest.

Shortly after, the company instituted the policy Wilson had requested.

After being jailed and released for her act of civil disobedience, Wilson embarked on a career as an environmentalist.

Although she said she has always disliked public speaking, she feels her message is one that needs to be spread.

"I really have a reluctance to talk, but I believe that the story has to get out there," Wilson said. "I believe that sometimes, it's not so much that I'm trying to get somebody to become an environmentalist or anything like that. I want people to believe that they can make a difference. I'm trying to reach somebody - anybody who needs to hear that."

Angie Posillo, a junior education major, said Wilson's unique history was her main reason for attending the lecture.

"I think she made a lot of wonderful points, and I like the fact that she didn't start out as an environmentalist," Posillo said. "It's cool that it was a larger concern about the environment as a whole that changed her."

Wilson's book, "An Unreasonable Woman: a True Story of Shrimpers, Politicos, Polluters, and the Fight for Seadrift, Texas," was on sale at the talk and Posillo said she intended to buy a copy.

Jessica Williams, a junior math major, attended because she had heard of Wilson's struggle in her Women's Studies class.

"I thought it was very informative, above all else," Williams said. "I was glad that she went into so much great detail, pinpointing the causes for everything she went through and how she felt in
the situation."

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