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Speaker 1: Also media. All right, it is a podcast that you're

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Speaker 1: listening to right now. Behind the Bastards, that's the one.

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Speaker 1: We're here, We're on the air and in the sky

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Speaker 1: and around you. Jason Pargin is our guest today. Jason,

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Speaker 1: how are you doing today?

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Speaker 2: I feel like I need to make this up to

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Speaker 2: your listeners for the last time I was on, because

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Speaker 2: last time we did in k Ultra, a subject that

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Speaker 2: I wanted to be a part of because I thought

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Speaker 2: it would be fun because it's conspiracy stuff and mind

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Speaker 2: control and mature and candidates. And then it turned out

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Speaker 2: once we got into the actual details to be a

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Speaker 2: real bummer.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's just abuse on a massive scale.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, a lot of abuse, a lot of the government

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Speaker 2: money wasted, a lot of stupid people acting in foolish ways,

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Speaker 2: and basically nobody was made to pay. So I suggested

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Speaker 2: the subject of this episode because I wanted something that

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Speaker 2: was more lighthearted that would make up for for that

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Speaker 2: where even if some bad things happen, it's okay because

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Speaker 2: you know that at the end the bad guys will

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Speaker 2: get what they deserve.

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Speaker 1: Mm hmmmm hmm.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And then we decided to do an episode about a

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Speaker 1: horrible industrial disaster. Instead, No, this is this is the

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Speaker 1: episode that you pitched, Jason, and uh, it's boy a

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Speaker 1: lot bleaker than I even thought it was going to

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Speaker 1: be when I when I went in on this, and

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Speaker 1: I think it's one that most people have not heard about, Like,

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Speaker 1: had you heard about this because it was a there

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Speaker 1: was a TikTok you came across that was kind of

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Speaker 1: like summarizing this.

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Speaker 2: Right, okay, Robert, Yes, I am an award winning New

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Speaker 2: York Times bestselling author. We cannot go on a microphone

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Speaker 2: and say, oh, you heard about this industrial accid TikTok.

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Speaker 2: We say that I read a book about it now

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Speaker 2: and that I just don't remember the title.

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Speaker 1: Jason. First off, I did read a couple of books

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Speaker 1: about it. But what I will say is, because you're

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Speaker 1: a TikTok star now, there's nothing that will increase your

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Speaker 1: credit with the gen Z kids more than getting news

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Speaker 1: from TikTok.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, we are going to record a multi part podcast

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Speaker 2: episode just on that three minute TikTok to break it

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Speaker 2: down now. Forty seconds in, he says this, No, so anyway, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I heard about this on TikTok and then looked it

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Speaker 2: up and then found out that its Wikipedia page is

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Speaker 2: like nine hundred words long. It's almost a stub and

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Speaker 2: it is the worst industrial disaster maybe in American history.

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Speaker 2: I say maybe because we know almost nothing about it.

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Speaker 2: Like there are famous disasters, Like in school, I heard

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Speaker 2: about the Triangle shirt waist factory fire that is a

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Speaker 2: famous example of a gross negligence at a workplace and

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Speaker 2: that killed like one hundred and fifty people. Yeah, this

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Speaker 2: was much much worse. The Triangle shirtwais like that Wikipedia

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Speaker 2: page goes on and on, it's like four thousand words long.

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Speaker 2: That's something we know about. It has been documented, There's been

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Speaker 2: books written about it. This thing got swept under the

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Speaker 2: rug so efficiently, and there is met with such indifference

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Speaker 2: that it is stunning. That to me, is the most

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Speaker 2: shocking part of this is how much people don't know

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Speaker 2: or care about it.

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Speaker 1: And I think one of the things that you're going

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Speaker 1: to be interested in as we get into this is

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Speaker 1: that there was a period of time in which this

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Speaker 1: was extremely famous and the degree to which it was

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Speaker 1: buried after that is a really interesting part of like

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Speaker 1: what's happened here? The disaster we're talking about because we

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Speaker 1: haven't said the name of it yet, if people are curious,

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Speaker 1: is the Hawk's Nest Tunnel disaster, which I also had

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Speaker 1: not heard of at all until you sent me that TikTok, Jason.

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Speaker 2: And like a lot of people, when you hear the

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Speaker 2: term Hawk's Nest Tunnel disaster, you're picturing people being attacked

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Speaker 2: by a giant swarm of hawks. Yeah, yeah, that's not

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Speaker 2: what happened.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like a bunch of cavers like find their way

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Speaker 1: into a tunnel and it winds up being like filled

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Speaker 1: with with some sort of like eyeless, featherless like underground

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Speaker 1: nighthawk that that only hunts. I'm imagining basically the creatures

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Speaker 1: from the first Riddick movie if you if you remember

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Speaker 1: that listeners, no one, no one on TikTok has watched

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Speaker 1: that film.

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Speaker 2: And if that hadn't happened, it would have been a

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Speaker 2: much more famous incident. Like I think that we would

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Speaker 2: have a statue of that of that songhere.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And and I do think we should have

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Speaker 1: a statue dedicated to the first Riddick movie. But that's

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Speaker 1: that's a separate matter. So we're gonna get into this story,

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Speaker 1: and it is fucking wild, but But first off, Jason

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Speaker 1: up at the top here. Uh, I think you you

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Speaker 1: have a book to plug I believe as usual.

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Speaker 2: Yes, the new one is called Zoe is Too Drunk

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Speaker 2: for This Dystopia. It's the latest in the Zoe ash series.

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Speaker 2: It is out October thirty first. And every possible format

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Speaker 2: including print and audio, and I guess just those two.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, all of the possible formats.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, when you say every possible format, are you getting

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Speaker 1: down on the metaverse yet, Jason? Because one day, theoretically

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Speaker 1: your book can be beamed directly into the brain of

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Speaker 1: a neuralink patient. You know, they instantly know everything that

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Speaker 1: you've written. We can really save a lot of time,

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Speaker 1: you know, with the just kind of cutting out the

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Speaker 1: joy of experiencing a story and just have it be

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Speaker 1: a memory immediately.

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Speaker 2: If you are listening to this podcast far enough in

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Speaker 2: the future, I am confident it will be available because

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Speaker 2: there is no way that my works will be lost

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Speaker 2: to time. It's simply not possible. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of loss to time, let's get into the

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Speaker 1: Hawk's Nest Tunnel disaster. So most people listen. Everyone listening

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Speaker 1: to this knows about Chernobyl easily the most famous industrial

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Speaker 1: disaster or accident in history, and it's you know, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of perfect for you know, a mini series on

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Speaker 1: HBO or whatever it's. You've got the disintegrating Soviet state,

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Speaker 1: you get a nuclear reactor. This like worry that it

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Speaker 1: could have been much worse and like killed millions of people.

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Speaker 1: But when you actually drill into how bad Chernobyl was,

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Speaker 1: what's amazing is how bad it wasn't because about thirty

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Speaker 1: people die immediately, and obviously that's that's fucked up, but

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Speaker 1: only about sixty or so are confirmed to have died

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Speaker 1: of radiation induced cancer from Chernobyl. Ever since, now, those

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Speaker 1: numbers don't tell the whole story. I'm not trying to

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Speaker 1: minimize this. Some estimates suggest as many as four thousand

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Speaker 1: people will eventually die as at least a partial result

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Speaker 1: of the radiation exposure they received from Chernobyl. That's not

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Speaker 1: an insignificant toll, but it's also like kind of a

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Speaker 1: fraction of It's a fraction for one thing, the worst

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Speaker 1: industrial disaster in history, which was the Bopaul chemical plant explosion.

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Speaker 1: We've covered that on the show before. That killed about

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Speaker 1: four thousand people immediately and injured more than two hundred thousand.

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Speaker 1: At least fifteen to twenty thousand additional people are known

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Speaker 1: to have died as a result of like lingering consequences

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Speaker 1: from Beopol. More than half a million people currently suffer

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Speaker 1: from respiratory distress or other health issues like blindness as

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Speaker 1: a result of it. It's worse than Chernobyl on a

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Speaker 1: pretty grand scale, and in the middle of those two,

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Speaker 1: significantly worse than Chernobyl, not as disastrous as Bopol is

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Speaker 1: the Hawk's Nest Tunnel disaster. And one of the things

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Speaker 1: that ties it to Bopol is that the Bopol chemical

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Speaker 1: factory that exploded, this pesticide factory was owned by a

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Speaker 1: little corporation you might have heard of called Union Carbide.

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Speaker 1: And Union Carbide is you know, there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: corporations we like to call evil out there, because you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe they have a negative impact on small businesses, or

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Speaker 1: pump a bunch of propaganda into our eyes or whatever.

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Speaker 1: Union Carbide is evil in that most dictators of the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century had a lower death count than this company

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Speaker 1: in terms of like direct deaths, dude, and negligence. And

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Speaker 1: so today we're gathering to talk about another Union Carbide

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Speaker 1: disaster because the Hawk's Nest Tunnel disaster is all on

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Speaker 1: Union Carbide. They are the guys behind this, and it's

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Speaker 1: it's interesting, you know, as you noted, you brought up

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Speaker 1: the Triangle Shirtwaist fire at the start of this, Jason.

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Speaker 1: If you combine the death tolls of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire,

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Speaker 1: the Sunshine Mind Disaster, and the Farmington Mind disaster, which

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Speaker 1: are three of the most famous twentieth century industrial disasters

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Speaker 1: in the US, they do not equal the death toll

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Speaker 1: of the Hawk's Nest Tunnel disaster, which by the way,

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Speaker 1: exceeds Chernobyle.

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Speaker 2: And to be fair to Union Carbide, both of these

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Speaker 2: disasters happened during just a period when they were I'm

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Speaker 2: sure going through some rough stretch because these are only

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Speaker 2: like sixty years apart, so you know, there's just a period,

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Speaker 2: a dark period in their company's history when I'm sure

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Speaker 2: other than that it's been fine.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, No, there's a there's no questions about any

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Speaker 1: of the other products that they've put out the consequences

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Speaker 1: those might have had on the population writ large. This

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Speaker 1: is interesting in part because it's an industrial disaster with

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Speaker 1: a horrible human toll that was not tied to you know,

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Speaker 1: Chernobyl was a bad nuclear plant, right, it was like

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Speaker 1: badly constructed. The Bopol Chemical Factory was a bad chemical factory.

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Speaker 1: The Hawk's Nest Tunnel is one of the most successful

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Speaker 1: construction projects in like the history of industrial It's basically

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Speaker 1: it's part of a hydro electric system that's still functioning today.

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Speaker 1: So one of the things that's compelling to me is

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Speaker 1: that like this was not the result of like a

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Speaker 1: shoddy project. This was the result of a concentrated financial

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Speaker 1: choice to make a project deadlier in order to maximize profits.

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Speaker 1: So that's interesting. But before we get into that, we

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Speaker 1: have to start with a little bit of history on

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Speaker 1: have you ever heard prior to this Jason of silicosis.

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Speaker 2: No, but I feel like hearing it that I could

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Speaker 2: put together what it is that silica dust, Like, I

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Speaker 2: think silica granules under a microscope are very sharp and

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Speaker 2: nasty looking. The idea of breathing too many of them,

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Speaker 2: I just imagine them shrubbing the tissue in your lungs.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a good way to view it, right,

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Speaker 1: because silica particles are basically just like little bits of glass.

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Speaker 1: But it's actually slightly worse than that. So what happens

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Speaker 1: with silicosis, you get it right. It's when you breathe

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Speaker 1: in too much silica dust. But these tiny particles of

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Speaker 1: silica actually get absorbed by cells in the lung and

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Speaker 1: this injures the cells and it causes them to start

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Speaker 1: I think the name of the process is autolysis, which

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Speaker 1: is when cells digest themselves. This causes masses of scar

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Speaker 1: tissue in your lungs and it reduces your ability to breathe. Eventually,

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Speaker 1: this will seriously compromise a person's ability to take in

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Speaker 1: oxygen at all. It's one of those things where silicas

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Speaker 1: is often not specifically what kills you, but it makes

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Speaker 1: you a lot more vulnerable to tuberculosis or pneumonia. You

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Speaker 1: think about like COVID nineteen right, how people who are

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Speaker 1: immuno compromised, who have some sort of issue with their

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Speaker 1: lungs were much more vulnerable to it because they just

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Speaker 1: had less lung to rely on at the start of things.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot like that and silicosis. Yeah, basically, your

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Speaker 1: lungs are basically eating themselves. That's kind of how it

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Speaker 1: kills you.

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Speaker 2: Now. Right at the top, I fear some people are

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Speaker 2: going to hear this and they're going to anticipate. Okay,

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Speaker 2: this is probably a situation where they had these people

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Speaker 2: working on a project and then years and years later

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Speaker 2: they started getting sick, and then the complaint is going

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Speaker 2: to be that, well they should have known. That is

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Speaker 2: not the situation. Guys, we're going to get into it.

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Speaker 2: They knew right away. Yeah, this is not a thing

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Speaker 2: like asbestos, where it was something that was widely used

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Speaker 2: and then a long long time later you started to

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Speaker 2: get realize, oh, we shouldn't have been using it like that. No,

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Speaker 2: they knew. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The timeframe on this is crez and the time frame

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Speaker 1: when silicosis can vary. Right, this is a thing that

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Speaker 1: you can get a lot of people who got silicosis

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Speaker 1: in the ancient world were like, you look at all

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Speaker 1: those very pretty marble structures in like Greece today, right

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Speaker 1: on the Parthenon. Well, to do that, you have to

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Speaker 1: chop up a bunch of bigger rocks, right, you have

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Speaker 1: to like carve them, and that creates dust that has

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Speaker 1: silica in it. So over time, the artisans who worked

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Speaker 1: on this kind of stuff would gradually their lungs would die.

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Speaker 1: They would get Basically it is like, this is one

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Speaker 1: of the things that gets called miner's lung or the

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Speaker 1: black lung. Right, So, craftsmen in the ancient world would

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Speaker 1: get this, but usually after a period of decades, right,

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Speaker 1: because they're not breathing in that much dust. The dust

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Speaker 1: doesn't have a huge quantity of silica in it, so

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Speaker 1: it takes a lot of time. It's also a thing

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Speaker 1: miners in the ancient world would get this right for

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Speaker 1: the same reason that miners in the modern world get it.

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Speaker 1: Coal mining is a lot worse for this, and so

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Speaker 1: black lung was a higher thing for them than like

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Speaker 1: a gold miner, because there's a lot of silica in

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Speaker 1: anthracite coal. Now, I said at the top, this is

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Speaker 1: the oldest known industrial ailment, and I meant it. It

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Speaker 1: is described I think the first time it's described as

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Speaker 1: by Herodotus. Right, Herodotus two thousand years in change ago

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Speaker 1: is writing about mine workers and craftsmen suffering from this

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Speaker 1: like lung destroying disease caused by breathing in dust. Like

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Speaker 1: we had a diagnosis for this thing about as far

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Speaker 1: back as we've had a concept of medicine. It's like

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Speaker 1: literally one of the first things we knew about.

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Speaker 2: Because it did not require a vast ocean of scientific

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Speaker 2: knowledge to understand I'm breathing the stuff that makes me

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Speaker 2: coughed and burns my nose. Yeah, and then eventually my

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Speaker 2: lungs feel like they're on fire, and then I can't

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Speaker 2: breathe anymore. Like it's just kind of connecting a to

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Speaker 2: be there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not as complicated as like inventing an mRNA vaccine. Yes,

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Speaker 1: it is kind of a basic observation that you can make.

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Speaker 1: And that's relevant because the company you carbide, when this

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Speaker 1: all rolls out, as going to claim like, well, we

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Speaker 1: didn't even know silicosis was a thing, and it's like, well,

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Speaker 1: you had two and a half thousand years or so

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Speaker 1: to get up to speed on this one, guys. And

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Speaker 1: it's one of those things. It's not just we're not

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Speaker 1: just talking about like the kind of Greco Roman ancient

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Speaker 1: world here. Tissue samples on mummified bodies of miners from

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Speaker 1: Peru have also shown evidence of silicosis. Spanish writers in

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Speaker 1: the seventeenth century documented that indigenous people who were like

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Speaker 1: enslaved and forced into mines in South America had a

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Speaker 1: life expectancy of just six to eighteen months because of this.

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Speaker 1: So this is one of those things when you read

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Speaker 1: about how you know, conquistadors started taking these large chunks

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Speaker 1: of South and Central America and then eighty percent, ninety percent,

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Speaker 1: whatever of the of the local indigenous population were dead

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Speaker 1: within a fairly short period of time. This is how

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Speaker 1: a lot of them died. Right, They're forced into mines,

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Speaker 1: they're inhaling silica dust and their lungs digest themselves. That

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Speaker 1: is like, what's actually going down.

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Speaker 2: As we're going to get into this, as they're working,

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Speaker 2: it's going to be it's going to become clear like

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Speaker 2: they had people who could not continue on the job,

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Speaker 2: many of them, and they were kind of just dragged

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Speaker 2: off and replaced. It's not everything that they're going to

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Speaker 2: say to defend themselves that it's like, well, this is

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Speaker 2: really the silent killer. You couldn't have known. It's like, no,

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Speaker 2: your inspectors were wearing protection when they came to look

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Speaker 2: at it, knowing that the workers were not. But we

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Speaker 2: all get into all of that. But yeah, the point

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Speaker 2: is this is important to establish because they they had

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Speaker 2: no reason to even from one moment, think that this

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Speaker 2: was not a danger there.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, and we see you know, there's significant increasing

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Speaker 1: references and an understanding of silicosis in Western sources from

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Speaker 1: about the sixteenth century on. This just becomes because a

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Speaker 1: lot of a lot of the modern world is built

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Speaker 1: on silicosis, right, Like, the sheer number of people who

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Speaker 1: had to get this thing in order to create a

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Speaker 1: lot of the foundations of the society we live in

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Speaker 1: is in the millions. So again, no real reason anyone

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Speaker 1: involved in digging tunnels or mining would not know this.

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Speaker 1: But in order to kind of set that out, I'm

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Speaker 1: going to quote from a book on the Hawk's Nest

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Speaker 1: Disaster by an epidemiologist named Martin Cherniac. In the eighteen hundred,

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Speaker 1: silicosis reached epidemic proportions among British potters. Vernacular terms for

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Speaker 1: the disease grinder's rot, potter's rot, and miner's pathisis became

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Speaker 1: common in that century, reflecting as well the concomitants of

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Speaker 1: silicosis and tuberculosis. The direct association between exposure to silicaceous

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Speaker 1: dusts and morbid fibrosis of the lungs was established in

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Speaker 1: the early eighteen sixties by British physicians, Although silicosis was

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Speaker 1: not yet categorized as a diagnostic entity, its connection with clays,

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Speaker 1: quartz and sandstone had been clearly identified. The practice of

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Speaker 1: wet drilling to reduce exposure to dust was introduced in

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Speaker 1: England as early as eighteen ninety seven. By nineteen eleven,

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Speaker 1: dry drilling had been explicitly forbidden by South African mining.

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Speaker 1: So there's a couple things that are interesting there. For one,

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Speaker 1: when we talk about this building the modern world, it's

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Speaker 1: not just like the people who had to mind the

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Speaker 1: stone to make our capitol buildings, or the people who

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Speaker 1: like mind gold or coal. It's like potters. It's people

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Speaker 1: making very basic like there's so many ways you can

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Speaker 1: encounter this stuff, and obviously that changes the time frame

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Speaker 1: at which it hits you. But the other thing that's

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Speaker 1: important is that because this was such a problem, people

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Speaker 1: as early as the eighteen nineties had figured out how

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Speaker 1: to mitigate it. And the best thing to mitigate it

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Speaker 1: is wet drilling. Right, So, when you have a dry

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Speaker 1: drill going into a piece of coal or rock or

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Speaker 1: whatever that's got a high silica content, it's going to

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Speaker 1: kick up a shitload of dust. If you're pumping water

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Speaker 1: in there. At the same time, the dust gets wet

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Speaker 1: and it just kind of gets madded down, so there's

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Speaker 1: not nearly as much of it in the air to

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Speaker 1: breathe in very basic, very low tech and like again,

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Speaker 1: South Africa in nineteen eleven, not the country that's probably

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Speaker 1: most concerned with the safety of their laborers, but they're

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Speaker 1: well ahead of the United States in this regard. Right,

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Speaker 1: they are have like ban this because it's inhumane dry drilling.

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Speaker 1: So the US is not just behind in this regard.

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Speaker 1: We are one of the last Western countries to really

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Speaker 1: build any kind of capacity for both the study of

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Speaker 1: occupational illnesses and the implementation of restrictions that might reduce

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Speaker 1: profitability but would reduce the death toll among the labor force.

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Speaker 1: And part of the reasons why we're so lax on

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Speaker 1: this is that when we first start putting together regulatory

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Speaker 1: entities that are looking at minds that are dealing with

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Speaker 1: the laborers who are encountering silicosis. These regulators exist and

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Speaker 1: they have like fancy names like the Bureau of Mining,

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Speaker 1: I think it's the Department of Mining, but they don't

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Speaker 1: actually have the ability to enforce laws, right, they get

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Speaker 1: to make recommendations. They can say, hey, you should probably

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Speaker 1: wet drill, but they can't say you're dry drilling and

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Speaker 1: killing your laborers, so now you know you're going to

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Speaker 1: get fined or whatever. Like, they don't actually have any

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Speaker 1: kind of power early on in the twentieth century to

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Speaker 1: do much of anything here.

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Speaker 2: I don't want to get political with this. I know

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Speaker 2: that everything is political in some way, but this is

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Speaker 2: the thing that is so hard to explain. Look, I

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Speaker 2: am more libertarian than a lot of people who say

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Speaker 2: work in the entertainment industry, but it is very difficult

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Speaker 2: to talk to someone who is on the extreme libertarian

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Speaker 2: site who acts like they don't understand why regulations exist

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Speaker 2: at all, because it's like, well, you know, if you

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Speaker 2: want to open a cupcake shop in America, you got

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Speaker 2: to fill fill out three hundred forms and get a

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Speaker 2: license for the oven. And it's like, okay, I get it.

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Speaker 2: If you've ever tried you know, anybody who's ever tried

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Speaker 2: to build anything and get permits, I get it. It

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Speaker 2: is a pain in the ass if you don't understand

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Speaker 2: the history of why we have eight million pages of regulations.

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Speaker 2: It is because if you don't have it explicitly spelled

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Speaker 2: out in the law. What you're not a allowed to

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Speaker 2: do to your workers, they will do it to the workers. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: there was an era in this country where we built

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Speaker 2: very fast, and we dug a lot of coal, and

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Speaker 2: we did a lot of mining, and we put down

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Speaker 2: a lot of railroad tracks with none of that stuff

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Speaker 2: on the books, and there are mass graves to show

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Speaker 2: for it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. And one of the things I don't get is

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Speaker 1: so a lot of the people who would make that

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Speaker 1: argument that you're making are folks who believe that part

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Speaker 1: of why you need the right to bear firearms, the

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Speaker 1: right to own in bear firearms, is that it provides

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Speaker 1: some sort of check to state power, right that one

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Speaker 1: of the things that could keep the state honest is

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Speaker 1: if you have an armed citizenry. This is something a

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Speaker 1: lot of those people would argue. It's an argument I'm

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Speaker 1: sympathetic to to a significant degree. But I don't see

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Speaker 1: how you can go from that to then saying like, well,

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Speaker 1: shouldn't you have something that can do that to these corporations?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 1: Like, that's what a regulatory entity is. It's the state

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Speaker 1: basically holding a gun on these companies that are otherwise

397
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Speaker 1: going to cut whatever corners they can, no matter how

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Speaker 1: much it harms its laborers. Like, I don't understand the

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Speaker 1: why that, why that there's not like any kind of

400
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Speaker 1: consistency with that, with that viewpoint among a lot of people,

401
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Speaker 1: not everybody.

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Speaker 2: Or if you're a Republican and if one of those

403
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Speaker 2: workers was to steal a bunch of coal, they would

404
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Speaker 2: want that worker thrown in jail, no mercy. Yeah, but

405
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Speaker 2: it's like, okay, but why isn't the company if you

406
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Speaker 2: believe in law and order cops being tough on criminals,

407
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Speaker 2: if you have a criminal company, why don't you have

408
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Speaker 2: that same attitude? Why are you looking at those executives

409
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Speaker 2: and those you know, those people on the ground who

410
00:21:35,359 --> 00:21:37,480
Speaker 2: knew what was going on, Why don't you have the

411
00:21:37,520 --> 00:21:39,919
Speaker 2: same lock them up and throw away the key attitude

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Speaker 2: that you have toward you know, a kid who sticks

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Speaker 2: somebody up in an alley, it's like, no, that that

414
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Speaker 2: he's it's too unsafe to have him out there. It's like, okay,

415
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Speaker 2: but do you understand there are some too, some corporations

416
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Speaker 2: where it's too unsafe to have them operating as a corporation. Yeah, Like,

417
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Speaker 2: why don't you have that same knee jerk reaction of

418
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Speaker 2: throw them, you know, throw them under the jail.

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Speaker 1: This is I mean, I have thought for a while

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Speaker 1: that like we need some sort of equivalent to like

421
00:22:04,800 --> 00:22:07,800
Speaker 1: a corporate death penalty, right where if a company is

422
00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:10,520
Speaker 1: acting irresponsible and enough of a scale, then it's like,

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Speaker 1: all right, well we're going to sell off your assets.

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Speaker 1: Your executives get nothing like this is a this is

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Speaker 1: the penalty for certain levels of irresponsibility. But you know,

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Speaker 1: we don't even really manage antitrust that well, So that's

427
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Speaker 1: that's probably And I'm not a not a law nowhere guy,

428
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Speaker 1: so I'm sure that that's illegal for a thousand different reasons.

429
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Speaker 1: But we should get back to the story fundamentally here.

430
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Speaker 1: So sorry, yeah, no, no, no, no, this is I

431
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Speaker 1: mean I think about this a lot because it's something

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Speaker 1: that I feel like a lot of the people who

433
00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:44,320
Speaker 1: I agree with on other things should get. But you

434
00:22:44,400 --> 00:22:48,639
Speaker 1: still you still encounter that attitude a lot. Anyway, Federal

435
00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:51,480
Speaker 1: agencies that are tasked with reducing sickness among workers and

436
00:22:51,520 --> 00:22:54,520
Speaker 1: managing working conditions are again hamstrung in this area. All

437
00:22:54,560 --> 00:22:56,720
Speaker 1: they can do is make recommendations. And this is the

438
00:22:56,760 --> 00:22:59,200
Speaker 1: era we are you know this story we're talking about

439
00:22:59,240 --> 00:23:02,040
Speaker 1: happens in the in the early nineteen thirties. This is

440
00:23:02,119 --> 00:23:06,320
Speaker 1: like right around the period where not far from where

441
00:23:06,359 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 1: this happens, the United States Army Air Corps is basically

442
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:14,440
Speaker 1: bombing mine workers from the sky on behalf of management

443
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:17,320
Speaker 1: as a result of like one of these miners uprising.

444
00:23:17,400 --> 00:23:20,080
Speaker 1: So it shouldn't be surprising that a lot of mine

445
00:23:20,080 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 1: workers are unwilling to spend money to keep workers alive. Now,

446
00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:27,600
Speaker 1: workers in Nevada courtz mines in the eighteen nineties get

447
00:23:27,600 --> 00:23:31,840
Speaker 1: diagnosed with a particularly aggressive form of silicosis. Ten percent

448
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:34,679
Speaker 1: of them die in a five year period, and this

449
00:23:34,760 --> 00:23:38,439
Speaker 1: is kind of the worst silicosis disaster prior to the

450
00:23:38,480 --> 00:23:40,880
Speaker 1: one we're about to talk about. There's another case where

451
00:23:40,880 --> 00:23:43,560
Speaker 1: a bunch of zinc miners in Missouri suffer high rates

452
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:46,880
Speaker 1: of silicosis. Several hundred die within ten years of entering

453
00:23:46,920 --> 00:23:51,119
Speaker 1: the mines, and so by the time the twenties roll around.

454
00:23:51,160 --> 00:23:54,600
Speaker 1: Both of these stories are extremely well known, and precautions

455
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,159
Speaker 1: against silicosas have become much more common even in the

456
00:23:57,280 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 1: United States. And as a result of some of these

457
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 1: precaus like wet drilling and a lot of operations coal operations,

458
00:24:03,280 --> 00:24:07,520
Speaker 1: in particular, morbidity from silicosis had plunged. So to sum

459
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 1: up quite a lot of research and trial and error

460
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:12,359
Speaker 1: in the US and around the world by the start

461
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 1: of the nineteen thirties. Mine operators have three major methods

462
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: of reducing the lethality of their minds. Number one is

463
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:21,320
Speaker 1: wet drilling, which we've talked about already. Number two is

464
00:24:21,359 --> 00:24:25,440
Speaker 1: providing ventilation, right, installing ventilation ducts and mines in order

465
00:24:25,520 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: to get bad air out right. That should be pretty obvious.

466
00:24:29,280 --> 00:24:32,159
Speaker 1: I don't think people need explanation as to why ventilation helps.

467
00:24:32,560 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 1: And the number three is issuing respirators from miners to

468
00:24:35,600 --> 00:24:38,600
Speaker 1: wear right. These are This is like a more primitive

469
00:24:38,680 --> 00:24:41,119
Speaker 1: version of the respirators. A lot of US war and

470
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:44,879
Speaker 1: wear as a result of the COVID nineteen pandemic the years,

471
00:24:45,119 --> 00:24:48,159
Speaker 1: and I actually didn't know there were functional respirators this

472
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:51,400
Speaker 1: far back, but the US Bureau of Mines started publishing

473
00:24:51,440 --> 00:24:55,440
Speaker 1: recommendations on which specific respirators to issue in nineteen twenty six.

474
00:24:56,040 --> 00:24:58,440
Speaker 1: And all of this wisdom is going to be ignored

475
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:03,160
Speaker 1: deliberately to the Hawk's Nest Tunnel disaster, so that part

476
00:25:03,160 --> 00:25:05,880
Speaker 1: of the story starts with the town of gaully Bridge

477
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:09,440
Speaker 1: in Fayette County, West Virginia. In nineteen thirty, it had

478
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:12,880
Speaker 1: a population of just over seventy two thousand. Now, West

479
00:25:12,960 --> 00:25:15,800
Speaker 1: Virginia is like a lot of parts of the world

480
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: that are have a troubled history with this sort of thing.

481
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 1: Rich in natural resources and also always poor. You run

482
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:25,879
Speaker 1: into a lot of these spots when you talk about

483
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:28,960
Speaker 1: industrial disasters, and you will not be surprised to learn

484
00:25:29,000 --> 00:25:31,639
Speaker 1: that it was hit particularly hard by the Great Depression.

485
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:36,080
Speaker 1: The unemployment rate in most counties of West Virginia hovered

486
00:25:36,080 --> 00:25:39,320
Speaker 1: between thirty and forty percent, which is I don't think

487
00:25:39,359 --> 00:25:43,400
Speaker 1: it's like an exaggeration to call that like near apocalyptic, right,

488
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:46,400
Speaker 1: think about, like the Great Depression, how bad it is. Famously,

489
00:25:46,440 --> 00:25:49,439
Speaker 1: in most of the country unemployments like maybe twenty to

490
00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:52,439
Speaker 1: twenty five percent, Right, You've got forty percent or in

491
00:25:52,440 --> 00:25:55,399
Speaker 1: some cases higher in most West Virginia counties. It's just

492
00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: a calamity for the whole state.

493
00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:00,600
Speaker 2: Let me say, let me venture this. You're for you

494
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 2: to correct me if I'm wrong. Forty percent unemployment in

495
00:26:04,119 --> 00:26:06,479
Speaker 2: this era in that place, with the state of the

496
00:26:06,480 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 2: infrastructure that they had at that time. There's no pore

497
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:14,560
Speaker 2: in the United States now that compares to that kind

498
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:16,720
Speaker 2: of core. Like that's poor on a level that most

499
00:26:16,720 --> 00:26:19,000
Speaker 2: of us can't comprehend.

500
00:26:19,320 --> 00:26:21,760
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, I believe with that. I don't think

501
00:26:21,800 --> 00:26:25,879
Speaker 1: I'm being like exaggerating here. At forty percent unemployment in

502
00:26:26,240 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 1: the US, like this would be a failed state, Like

503
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,320
Speaker 1: the basics of infrastructure would no longer function, It would

504
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 1: be a calamity.

505
00:26:34,800 --> 00:26:37,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, the elements of the social safety net stuff that

506
00:26:37,680 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 2: came about after the depression. There's a whole lot of

507
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 2: stuff that did not exist exist back then in terms

508
00:26:43,760 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 2: of assistance, in terms of everything, in terms of where

509
00:26:46,600 --> 00:26:49,320
Speaker 2: you would seek medical help if you had an infection

510
00:26:49,480 --> 00:26:53,000
Speaker 2: or a broken leg or anything. It is hard to comprehend.

511
00:26:54,440 --> 00:26:56,640
Speaker 2: This is crucial to understand because when we start talking

512
00:26:56,680 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 2: about this case, you're going to be asking, if you

513
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:00,640
Speaker 2: are very naive or very young, well, why did they

514
00:27:00,640 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 2: just quit or why did they go to the press,

515
00:27:03,400 --> 00:27:06,280
Speaker 2: or why didn't they complain to this? You know, the

516
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:11,280
Speaker 2: labor Relations board got to understand the context here. This

517
00:27:11,320 --> 00:27:14,240
Speaker 2: is a place where if a job comes along, you

518
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:15,240
Speaker 2: don't say no to it.

519
00:27:15,359 --> 00:27:19,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, period, For a lot of these people like it

520
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 1: might seem like the world's ending things are so so bad.

521
00:27:23,560 --> 00:27:26,400
Speaker 1: So part of why they are so bad, why unemployment

522
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:28,399
Speaker 1: so much higher in West Virginia, is that over the

523
00:27:28,400 --> 00:27:31,359
Speaker 1: course of the twenties and thirties, the mining industry that

524
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:35,480
Speaker 1: had largely built what prosperity West Virginia had had fallen apart.

525
00:27:35,760 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: The region is obviously very rich in coal, but for

526
00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:43,359
Speaker 1: a variety of reasons, including under regulation in that particular state,

527
00:27:43,720 --> 00:27:47,280
Speaker 1: its minds were also inefficient. So by the twenties and thirties,

528
00:27:47,480 --> 00:27:50,479
Speaker 1: a lot of the nation's coal needs are being served

529
00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:54,359
Speaker 1: by newer and more efficient facilities in other states. And

530
00:27:54,440 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: because there's so many additional new and more efficient minds,

531
00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:00,400
Speaker 1: there's a surplus of coal for i think, pretty much

532
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 1: the first time since we started needing it, and that's

533
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:07,919
Speaker 1: disastrous for West Virginia's mining industry as well. All of

534
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:11,240
Speaker 1: this deals a near fatal blow to the United Mine Workers' Union,

535
00:28:11,400 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: which provided the bosses with opportunities to basically make ad

536
00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:18,760
Speaker 1: hoc agreements with groups of starving miners that would deny

537
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,119
Speaker 1: them any of the protections and security that previous generations

538
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 1: or the generation right before them had fought to gain right.

539
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:26,679
Speaker 1: So one of the things that's happening here is because

540
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:30,360
Speaker 1: of how disastrous this is, there's not really any labor

541
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:33,360
Speaker 1: power in the state of West Virginia that can provide

542
00:28:33,359 --> 00:28:36,639
Speaker 1: any kind of countervailing force to the bosses that are

543
00:28:36,640 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 1: going to be running this project. But you know what

544
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 1: does provide a countervailing force to this podcast, I suppose

545
00:28:44,840 --> 00:28:56,480
Speaker 1: is ads we're back ugh, so we're talking about why

546
00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: the setup to this disaster. So one of the other

547
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: things that's happened here is that, like West Virginia used

548
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:05,480
Speaker 1: to be covered in old growth forests, those are basically

549
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 1: all gone by this point. So that's an industry that

550
00:29:07,760 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 1: no longer exists. That's another part of why so many

551
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 1: people are out of work, and so because coal isn't

552
00:29:13,080 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 1: really profitable right now, the forests have basically been killed.

553
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,480
Speaker 1: The one thing that West Virginia has an abundance is

554
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: moving water. Right. The state's got a lot of big rivers,

555
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 1: and those rivers can be harnessed to provide hydro electric power,

556
00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:28,080
Speaker 1: which we have figured out to do pretty well by

557
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds, So the Electro Metallurgical Company, the

558
00:29:32,840 --> 00:29:36,400
Speaker 1: start of the century starts building hydro power capability in

559
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:38,880
Speaker 1: the state, and they start buying up smaller companies who

560
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 1: are involved in like mining different kinds of minerals, like

561
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:46,200
Speaker 1: the Wilson Aluminum Company, and adding that to their portfolio. Now,

562
00:29:46,240 --> 00:29:48,840
Speaker 1: the founder of this company is a guy named Major Morland,

563
00:29:49,040 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: and in nineteen eleven he draws up plans for a

564
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:54,800
Speaker 1: massive new hydro electric facility which will use the power

565
00:29:54,840 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 1: of a river to support the manufacturing of futuristic new

566
00:29:58,400 --> 00:30:01,120
Speaker 1: alloys that required high to temperatures and state of the

567
00:30:01,200 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 1: art power hungry facilities to provide. I think this facility

568
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:06,680
Speaker 1: is going to be a significant part actually of like

569
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 1: our production of the alloys that make the US part

570
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: of World War II possible. Right, you need a lot

571
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:15,240
Speaker 1: of metals that don't just come naturally out of the

572
00:30:15,240 --> 00:30:17,800
Speaker 1: ground on their own in order to make let's say,

573
00:30:17,800 --> 00:30:21,560
Speaker 1: a P fifty one Mustang. So they pick for this

574
00:30:21,640 --> 00:30:25,400
Speaker 1: hydroelectric plant an area of the new River Canawa Falls,

575
00:30:25,720 --> 00:30:28,280
Speaker 1: which is kind of the ideal location in their mind.

576
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: So construction begins at first at a place called Glenn

577
00:30:30,760 --> 00:30:34,000
Speaker 1: Ferris on the river, and a small, rather primitive dam

578
00:30:34,080 --> 00:30:37,719
Speaker 1: is built than in nineteen seventeen, the Electro Metallurgical Company

579
00:30:37,800 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 1: merges with three other corporations in West Virginia to form

580
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:45,959
Speaker 1: a new entity, the Union Carbide and Carbon Corporation. So

581
00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:48,880
Speaker 1: this is the start of Union Carbide. This is actually

582
00:30:48,880 --> 00:30:51,440
Speaker 1: going to be its first big project, what we're talking

583
00:30:51,480 --> 00:30:54,360
Speaker 1: about here. So now that it's flush with cash, plans

584
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 1: move forward to create a new and a much larger dam.

585
00:30:57,320 --> 00:31:00,120
Speaker 1: The problem is expanding the size of this dam the

586
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:03,080
Speaker 1: way Union carbid once is illegal. The Army Corps of

587
00:31:03,080 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 1: Engineers has laid out strict requirements about how large such

588
00:31:06,480 --> 00:31:10,200
Speaker 1: facilities can be because you have to have a navigable waterway, right,

589
00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:12,680
Speaker 1: you can't just like destroy the ability of a river

590
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,600
Speaker 1: to like function, to be traveled across, to be utilized

591
00:31:16,640 --> 00:31:19,200
Speaker 1: by people for a variety of other reasons, just so

592
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: you can build your hydro electric facility. So, since this

593
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 1: is illegal, Union Carby decides what if we just break

594
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:29,360
Speaker 1: the law and build it anyway, which they do, and

595
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: they build this fucking thing, and in the nineteen nineteen

596
00:31:32,240 --> 00:31:34,320
Speaker 1: when it's done, they reach out to the government and

597
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:36,080
Speaker 1: are like, hey, you know this thing we're not allowed

598
00:31:36,120 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 1: to do. Well, we did it. Can we get retroactive permission.

599
00:31:40,040 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: Now to their credit, the government's like, well, no you can't,

600
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:47,480
Speaker 1: but they don't do anything. Again, we have at this

601
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:49,840
Speaker 1: point these regulators are able to like say all the

602
00:31:49,920 --> 00:31:52,720
Speaker 1: right things like you can't illegally build this dam that

603
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:55,040
Speaker 1: fucks with the waterway, but they don't have any kind

604
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 1: of like power to actually take action, which is a

605
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:01,880
Speaker 1: pretty bad mix in my opinion. Not to get political here,

606
00:32:01,960 --> 00:32:05,920
Speaker 1: but Union Carbide makes plans to expand its holdings on

607
00:32:05,960 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: the New River. They construct two additional dams, and they

608
00:32:09,240 --> 00:32:11,920
Speaker 1: file plans in nineteen twenty seven through a corporate entity

609
00:32:11,960 --> 00:32:14,400
Speaker 1: they cut out to handle this whole business, the New

610
00:32:14,480 --> 00:32:18,040
Speaker 1: Cana What Power Company. And so this is going to

611
00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:20,520
Speaker 1: be a project of this company called the New Cana

612
00:32:20,560 --> 00:32:23,720
Speaker 1: What Power Company. But that's Union Carbide, right. This is

613
00:32:23,760 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: a thing that they build and create in order to

614
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: mitigate risk for themselves. If they like fuck up the

615
00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 1: whole project and get a bunch of people killed. It's

616
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:34,200
Speaker 1: a kind of thing that corporations don't do anymore. Right, obviously,

617
00:32:34,600 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 1: that would be ano.

618
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 2: Well, okay, I do want to talk about something because

619
00:32:38,080 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 2: to this day you have Silicon Valley billionaires talking about

620
00:32:42,400 --> 00:32:45,360
Speaker 2: we want to just move fast and break things out

621
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:48,480
Speaker 2: and we can always like apologize later, we'll pay whatever fine,

622
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:49,960
Speaker 2: but we're just going to take off and do it

623
00:32:50,800 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 2: because that's you know, that's how innovation happens. We're not

624
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:55,120
Speaker 2: going to worry about all of these little rules, all

625
00:32:55,160 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 2: this stuff. We're gonna launch our rocket. We're I'm gonna

626
00:32:57,520 --> 00:33:00,200
Speaker 2: worry whether or not debris reins down on houses for

627
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:03,400
Speaker 2: six miles in every direction. Like we'll just what matters

628
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:06,160
Speaker 2: is that we achieve the rocket launch and then all

629
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:08,800
Speaker 2: this other stuff we can smooth smooth it over later.

630
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:14,400
Speaker 2: Like there's this spirit of once we build it, we

631
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:17,720
Speaker 2: may have to pay a fine later maybe like they

632
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:19,760
Speaker 2: may yell at us, they may shake their finger at us,

633
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 2: but the thing we built is going to stay built. Yeah,

634
00:33:22,680 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 2: and that's been true. I feel like for a long time,

635
00:33:24,920 --> 00:33:27,160
Speaker 2: it's like, well, let's just do it, and then once

636
00:33:27,200 --> 00:33:29,959
Speaker 2: it's done, it'll be harder for them to because you know,

637
00:33:30,480 --> 00:33:31,760
Speaker 2: what are they going to do? Fill it back in?

638
00:33:31,800 --> 00:33:34,160
Speaker 2: It's like no, most likely they'll just shout at us

639
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,640
Speaker 2: a little bit or even if that, yeah, and then

640
00:33:36,680 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 2: we'll have our thing. We'll have our dam.

641
00:33:38,760 --> 00:33:43,040
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's frustrating like how consistently that works, because there's

642
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:46,360
Speaker 1: really there's still not a counter to that kind of thing, right,

643
00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:49,479
Speaker 1: because like, what are you going to do, like dismantle it?

644
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:51,320
Speaker 1: It would be kind of cool if they did, but

645
00:33:51,400 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: also probably would cause a bunch of other people to

646
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:54,760
Speaker 1: die of silicosis.

647
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:58,000
Speaker 2: So anyway, I'm just gonna say, likewise, if you compare

648
00:33:58,040 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 2: the size of the fines for say, the opioid epidemic

649
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 2: to these form of companies versus the amount of profit

650
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:07,200
Speaker 2: they made, Yeah, selling the pain killers, it's nothing. It's

651
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:09,719
Speaker 2: a drop in the bucket. So it's like, well, why

652
00:34:09,760 --> 00:34:12,759
Speaker 2: not just invent the new addictive thing, because yeah, you'll

653
00:34:12,800 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 2: have to pay back five percent of it in the

654
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:17,799
Speaker 2: form of a fine, But so what nobody went to jail.

655
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the kind of thing you know, you'll hear

656
00:34:20,560 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 1: debate a lot when people talk about like Enron, right,

657
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 1: where maybe the two thousand and eight crash wouldn't have

658
00:34:24,800 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: happened if more of those guys had gone to prison.

659
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: And I don't know that that would have done anything.

660
00:34:30,160 --> 00:34:33,360
Speaker 1: But it couldn't hurt to try, right, Like, it wouldn't

661
00:34:33,360 --> 00:34:34,759
Speaker 1: have hurt to try. It wouldn't have hurt to try

662
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:36,320
Speaker 1: in two thousand and eight. It wouldn't have hurt to

663
00:34:36,320 --> 00:34:39,280
Speaker 1: try in nineteen thirty with this thing, you know, treating

664
00:34:40,040 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 1: these crimes that have much higher body accounts than like

665
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:46,000
Speaker 1: bank robbers do with a similar degree of severity. But

666
00:34:46,320 --> 00:34:47,840
Speaker 1: that's not going to happen in this case, so I

667
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 1: guess we should just move along. So this new plan

668
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 1: for this massive, massive hydro plant involves the creation of

669
00:34:55,560 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 1: a sixteen thousand, two hundred and forty foot long tunnel. Right,

670
00:35:00,000 --> 00:35:03,479
Speaker 1: they're going underground to divert water from the new river

671
00:35:03,640 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 1: through a mountain, gaully mountain, and because of like the

672
00:35:07,320 --> 00:35:09,360
Speaker 1: angle at which the water is going to be coming in,

673
00:35:09,520 --> 00:35:12,879
Speaker 1: they're basically building an underground river that they can use

674
00:35:12,920 --> 00:35:17,400
Speaker 1: to funnel water from the existing river and run the

675
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,080
Speaker 1: hydro electric plant with that. This is a three mile

676
00:35:20,200 --> 00:35:23,799
Speaker 1: long tunnel through solid rock. So it's one of those

677
00:35:23,800 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 1: things that, like to the fathers of the people building

678
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:30,160
Speaker 1: this thing would have been an impossible project in their youth,

679
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:33,040
Speaker 1: Like this is something that modern science and machinery has

680
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:37,840
Speaker 1: just made possible now because the goal of this tunnel

681
00:35:38,000 --> 00:35:42,759
Speaker 1: is to provide electricity for the electro Metallurgical co subsidiary

682
00:35:42,800 --> 00:35:45,600
Speaker 1: that exists within Union Carbide. This is not a mining

683
00:35:45,680 --> 00:35:50,000
Speaker 1: project technically, right, It's just a construction project, which means

684
00:35:50,040 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 1: none of the workers are protected from any of the

685
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:56,480
Speaker 1: regulations that do exist to keep miners safe from silicosis.

686
00:35:56,520 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 1: So the minimal protections that existed aren't in place here

687
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: because they're technickly not mining, even though as we'll cover,

688
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:05,279
Speaker 1: they are going to be mining. But I want to

689
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:08,520
Speaker 1: quote now from a fascinating study in the American Society

690
00:36:08,520 --> 00:36:13,880
Speaker 1: of Safety Professionals journal vantage Point that's analyzing this disaster. Quote.

691
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:16,759
Speaker 1: Union Carbide received thirty five bids and awarded a two

692
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:19,200
Speaker 1: year contract to rein Hart and Dennis, one of the

693
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:22,280
Speaker 1: few construction companies able to manage such a large project.

694
00:36:22,680 --> 00:36:25,120
Speaker 1: During the bid process, rein Hart and Dennis reported having

695
00:36:25,160 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 1: built fifty one tunnels in the past thirty five years.

696
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:30,880
Speaker 1: Engineers from New Kanawa Power were to design and oversee

697
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:34,479
Speaker 1: the operation. The contract specified that reine harton Dennis would

698
00:36:34,480 --> 00:36:38,120
Speaker 1: assume all liability, thus Union Carbide was shielded. The contract

699
00:36:38,120 --> 00:36:40,760
Speaker 1: included a clause that allowed engineers for New Kanawa Power

700
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,759
Speaker 1: to force changes into the contractor's procedures if injuries were

701
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:47,399
Speaker 1: caused by negligence on behalf of the contractor, but New

702
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:51,200
Speaker 1: Kanawa Power never intervened. The contract also called for reine

703
00:36:51,200 --> 00:36:53,560
Speaker 1: Hart and Dennis to furnish an equipment on site hospital,

704
00:36:53,600 --> 00:36:56,359
Speaker 1: but only four first aid stations were provided, one at

705
00:36:56,360 --> 00:36:59,680
Speaker 1: each dig. Workers sustaining major injuries were transported to Coal

706
00:36:59,719 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 1: Valley Hospital fourteen miles away. So even under the terms

707
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:06,839
Speaker 1: of the very again even more minimal than the protections

708
00:37:06,840 --> 00:37:11,200
Speaker 1: that existed. Like contract they sign this subsidiary, Ryan harton

709
00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:14,200
Speaker 1: Dennis is going to further cut costs, right, because they're

710
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:17,160
Speaker 1: trying to maximize what they get from Union Carbiden actually

711
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:20,400
Speaker 1: get to take home. Union Carbide wants to cut costs

712
00:37:20,440 --> 00:37:22,520
Speaker 1: because that's going to get their facility up and running,

713
00:37:22,520 --> 00:37:24,440
Speaker 1: which is going to let them produce alloys faster. So

714
00:37:24,480 --> 00:37:27,920
Speaker 1: they want this faster and cheaper. Everybody's interest, like the

715
00:37:27,960 --> 00:37:30,359
Speaker 1: further you go down the chain is just how can

716
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:32,320
Speaker 1: we do this faster? How can we do this cheaper?

717
00:37:32,360 --> 00:37:35,800
Speaker 1: And the easiest way to cut costs is with the workers' lives.

718
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:39,600
Speaker 2: Right. So I know that it gets confusing getting into

719
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:42,360
Speaker 2: stuff like loopholes and subsidiaries and all that, but I

720
00:37:42,480 --> 00:37:45,000
Speaker 2: cannot emphasize enough, and I don't want to belabor the point,

721
00:37:45,040 --> 00:37:48,440
Speaker 2: but the reason why the regulations are a stack of

722
00:37:48,520 --> 00:37:54,320
Speaker 2: papers eighteen feet tall is because the companies have lawyers

723
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:56,600
Speaker 2: to do things like say, well, technically, this is a

724
00:37:56,600 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 2: construction project, not a mining project. They're not mining for anything.

725
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 2: They're built in a tunnel, So why do we need

726
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 2: like finding little ways to sneak around the regulation so

727
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 2: you don't have to provide the respirators or go through

728
00:38:10,840 --> 00:38:14,760
Speaker 2: the rules with normal governed mining, because well, technically, according

729
00:38:14,800 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 2: to the paperwork, a mine is this, and technically we're

730
00:38:18,200 --> 00:38:21,680
Speaker 2: doing this, even though everyone knows it's the exact same

731
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 2: work with the exact same dangers. That is why the

732
00:38:25,640 --> 00:38:29,319
Speaker 2: regulations look the way they do, because you have to

733
00:38:29,440 --> 00:38:33,279
Speaker 2: close every conceivable loophole because the companies have their own

734
00:38:33,400 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 2: lawyers specifically to find them.

735
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think one of the best ways to

736
00:38:38,840 --> 00:38:43,520
Speaker 1: look at how complex and labyrinthine regulations get is think about, like,

737
00:38:43,600 --> 00:38:46,080
Speaker 1: if you're a military history nerd, like like I am.

738
00:38:45,920 --> 00:38:47,680
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not sure about you, Jason, but I like

739
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:50,120
Speaker 1: reading about that stuff. When you look at the maps

740
00:38:50,120 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 1: of like civil war battles, right, there's just it's it's

741
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:56,360
Speaker 1: this hugely there's all these different colored little symbols that

742
00:38:56,400 --> 00:38:58,960
Speaker 1: stand for these different units, and these arrows moving all

743
00:38:58,960 --> 00:39:02,040
Speaker 1: in all around and like to show like where everyone's gone.

744
00:39:02,160 --> 00:39:06,120
Speaker 1: It's these incredibly complex series of movements and counter movements

745
00:39:06,120 --> 00:39:10,359
Speaker 1: and advances and retreats. When you're looking at regulations, what

746
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:14,720
Speaker 1: you are seeing is, to some extent, the fossil record

747
00:39:14,840 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: of a conflict. Right of government makes regulation, corporation finds

748
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:22,160
Speaker 1: loophole to get around it. Government has to clarify or

749
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:24,120
Speaker 1: add in new rules or make a new law to

750
00:39:24,160 --> 00:39:26,600
Speaker 1: deal with the loophole that provides new loopholes. Like that's

751
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: that's what you're seeing is like a record of a

752
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:33,200
Speaker 1: conflict that is fundamentally over Like how much can you

753
00:39:33,600 --> 00:39:35,720
Speaker 1: endanger people in order to make a profit.

754
00:39:36,480 --> 00:39:38,879
Speaker 2: Just look at the list of terms of conditions when

755
00:39:38,920 --> 00:39:41,279
Speaker 2: you buy anything, and this is like do I need

756
00:39:41,600 --> 00:39:45,800
Speaker 2: this documents eight pages long so I can buy a toaster?

757
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:49,719
Speaker 2: It's like, yes, you're looking at the history of houses

758
00:39:49,760 --> 00:39:53,200
Speaker 2: that have burned down. Yeah, every other thing that it's

759
00:39:53,239 --> 00:39:56,080
Speaker 2: like that you're looking at a fossil record of a

760
00:39:56,200 --> 00:39:59,680
Speaker 2: fight between regulators and consumers and every other thing.

761
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:03,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, so we're going to be getting into darker

762
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 1: territory from here because the workers hired by Ryan Hart

763
00:40:07,080 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: and Dennis aren't just devoid of protections, they're also being

764
00:40:10,160 --> 00:40:13,640
Speaker 1: thrown into a working environment which their bosses are incentivized

765
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: to take risks with their lives in order to make

766
00:40:15,600 --> 00:40:18,680
Speaker 1: more money. Because the contract for the tunnel has incentives

767
00:40:18,680 --> 00:40:22,279
Speaker 1: and penalties. There's a two year target date, and if

768
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:25,879
Speaker 1: they beat the target date for every day they are

769
00:40:25,960 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: shorter than two years, for every day that they finish

770
00:40:28,719 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 1: like earlier than two years, they get two hundred and

771
00:40:31,520 --> 00:40:36,760
Speaker 1: fifty dollars. So as a spoiler, they're going to finish

772
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:40,080
Speaker 1: this thing in about a year, which is a significant

773
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 1: amount of extra money for them. And the only way

774
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:45,560
Speaker 1: to do that is by cutting down on things that

775
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 1: take time. And one thing that takes time is wet drilling. Right,

776
00:40:48,760 --> 00:40:50,960
Speaker 1: it's slower to wet droll. I think it's like half

777
00:40:51,000 --> 00:40:54,279
Speaker 1: as fast as dry drilling. So I just want to

778
00:40:54,360 --> 00:40:56,440
Speaker 1: keep in your mind right now, rhin harton Dennis, the

779
00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:59,879
Speaker 1: construction company, because of how Union Carbide has structured the deal,

780
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:03,480
Speaker 1: has a vested financial interest in rushing this gig now.

781
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:06,760
Speaker 1: On March thirty first, nineteen thirty a Union Carbide executive

782
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:08,880
Speaker 1: pilot's a steam shovel to dig the first load of

783
00:41:08,880 --> 00:41:11,200
Speaker 1: earth away from what will become the Hawk's Nest tunnel.

784
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: This is purely a media gesture, and I think there's

785
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 1: also it's one of those things the contract they have

786
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:17,719
Speaker 1: with the state, they have to start digging by a

787
00:41:17,760 --> 00:41:19,959
Speaker 1: certain point, so they do it for that, But real

788
00:41:20,040 --> 00:41:21,680
Speaker 1: work is going to take a little bit of time

789
00:41:21,800 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 1: to spin up here. Ryan Hart and Dennis are going

790
00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:27,600
Speaker 1: to need about five thousand workers on the project total,

791
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:29,600
Speaker 1: and I think about three thousand who are going to

792
00:41:29,640 --> 00:41:33,440
Speaker 1: be in the tunnel, right. Tunneling like this requires a

793
00:41:33,520 --> 00:41:36,320
Speaker 1: huge number of people now, and only some of the

794
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:38,839
Speaker 1: jobs are what are known as high skill positions. So

795
00:41:39,040 --> 00:41:41,520
Speaker 1: a high skill position in an operation like this is

796
00:41:41,920 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 1: manning a drill. There's like machines to kind of like

797
00:41:44,640 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 1: suck extra track.

798
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:45,840
Speaker 2: Like.

799
00:41:45,880 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 1: All of the kind of machine work, right, most of

800
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:52,479
Speaker 1: which happens outside of the tunnel are that's high skilled jobs. Right.

801
00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:56,279
Speaker 1: The engineers who have to oversee everything, those are high

802
00:41:56,280 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: skilled jobs. But the workers in the tunnel who are

803
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:03,560
Speaker 1: physically digging through the chopped up rock, who are moving

804
00:42:03,560 --> 00:42:05,960
Speaker 1: it into the bins and stuff to take it away.

805
00:42:06,160 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: Who are doing the actual tunnel digging. That's a low

806
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:13,399
Speaker 1: skill job. Again, I'm not making a judgment about this work.

807
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:15,600
Speaker 1: I couldn't do it. I'm just saying, like, within kind

808
00:42:15,640 --> 00:42:17,759
Speaker 1: of the parlance of the times, that's what they're calling it.

809
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 1: So given the ongoing depression, it should not be surprising

810
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:25,560
Speaker 1: that workers flood into this project begging for jobs. The

811
00:42:25,640 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 1: company claimed that they hired mainly from local men who

812
00:42:28,680 --> 00:42:31,640
Speaker 1: had been mine workers and had experience making tunnels, but

813
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:34,960
Speaker 1: this was a lie. Experienced miners from the area made

814
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:38,080
Speaker 1: up a small percentage of the workers. The company didn't

815
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:41,120
Speaker 1: mostly want to hire those guys because number one, they

816
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:43,480
Speaker 1: know how shit's supposed to work, so they're going They

817
00:42:43,480 --> 00:42:46,680
Speaker 1: know how to organize their experience. So if the company

818
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:49,360
Speaker 1: is taking risks with their lives or is treating them wrong,

819
00:42:49,640 --> 00:42:53,200
Speaker 1: there's a higher risk that they might stand up for themselves. Also,

820
00:42:53,960 --> 00:42:58,279
Speaker 1: locals have more protection than migrant laborers. If you fuck

821
00:42:58,360 --> 00:43:01,800
Speaker 1: with a local that town, right, if you get people

822
00:43:01,800 --> 00:43:04,759
Speaker 1: in that town pissed off enough, they might literally take

823
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:07,879
Speaker 1: destructive action against your facilities. That kind of stuff had

824
00:43:07,920 --> 00:43:10,400
Speaker 1: happened and was happening around the country at this period

825
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: of time. Migrant workers have no support base. They don't

826
00:43:14,680 --> 00:43:17,160
Speaker 1: have family they can go to for one thing, they

827
00:43:17,160 --> 00:43:20,040
Speaker 1: don't have anyone who can help them if they wind

828
00:43:20,160 --> 00:43:23,760
Speaker 1: up being taken advantage of. So Union Carbide is mostly

829
00:43:23,800 --> 00:43:26,880
Speaker 1: going to hire migrant workers, and the vast majority of

830
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 1: these migrant workers are not white. So over eighty percent

831
00:43:31,200 --> 00:43:34,520
Speaker 1: of the locals in this county are white people. Union

832
00:43:34,560 --> 00:43:37,319
Speaker 1: Carbides records, though, report that sixty five percent of the

833
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:40,120
Speaker 1: men working in the tunnel are black. I've heard reports

834
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:43,080
Speaker 1: as high as like seventy five percent. Most of these

835
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: men came from outside Fayette County, and the best records

836
00:43:46,640 --> 00:43:48,880
Speaker 1: we have suggests that less than twenty percent of the

837
00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:50,879
Speaker 1: men who are on the project in the tunnel line

838
00:43:50,880 --> 00:43:54,320
Speaker 1: out of it are from the area. So yeah, traveling

839
00:43:54,400 --> 00:43:57,840
Speaker 1: black laborers are obviously the easiest group of workers you

840
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:01,359
Speaker 1: could have to fuck with, right for one thing, the

841
00:44:01,400 --> 00:44:05,320
Speaker 1: miners camp I mean, obviously, racism is a major factor here. Golly,

842
00:44:05,719 --> 00:44:08,799
Speaker 1: the town that's nearby. Some of the reports I've read

843
00:44:09,000 --> 00:44:11,759
Speaker 1: from that interviews with black labors say that like it

844
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:14,480
Speaker 1: was better than most towns if you were a black

845
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:16,560
Speaker 1: person it was not as bad as a lot of places,

846
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:19,920
Speaker 1: but you still can't move there, right, You don't have

847
00:44:20,000 --> 00:44:24,520
Speaker 1: connections there, and these white locals are extremely unlikely to

848
00:44:24,680 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 1: stand up for you if something like bad happens. Right,

849
00:44:27,560 --> 00:44:29,399
Speaker 1: So you're kind of if you're one of these black

850
00:44:29,440 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 1: laborers who's traveled from like the Carolinas or whatever to

851
00:44:32,719 --> 00:44:36,640
Speaker 1: work on this project, you're kind of in space, right,

852
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:41,320
Speaker 1: Like your only tether to being able to get food, water,

853
00:44:41,600 --> 00:44:45,319
Speaker 1: medical care is the company that's employing you. Right, You're

854
00:44:45,360 --> 00:44:47,800
Speaker 1: totally at their mercy. And I'm going to read another

855
00:44:47,840 --> 00:44:50,759
Speaker 1: passage from Martin Cherneyac's book that lays out how most

856
00:44:50,760 --> 00:44:54,080
Speaker 1: of these workers get hired. The account of an eighteen

857
00:44:54,160 --> 00:44:56,400
Speaker 1: year old from South Carolina may be typical. With his

858
00:44:56,480 --> 00:44:58,279
Speaker 1: father and uncle, he had worked for yin Hart and

859
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:01,200
Speaker 1: Dennis on seasonal jobs in the carolin He first heard

860
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:03,680
Speaker 1: of the tunnel through a work acquaintance, a company stringer

861
00:45:03,680 --> 00:45:06,040
Speaker 1: who was supplied with bus fare and a stipend to

862
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: promote employment amongst southern blacks. The boy paid his own

863
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 1: fare to Gallybridge. He was immediately added to the roles

864
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:14,400
Speaker 1: because he was known to several of the contractor's foreman,

865
00:45:16,040 --> 00:45:18,880
Speaker 1: and there are some sources that will claim that a

866
00:45:18,880 --> 00:45:21,200
Speaker 1: lot of the black workforce was press ganged into the job,

867
00:45:21,320 --> 00:45:24,960
Speaker 1: basically kidnapped by company agents sent in from other states.

868
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:29,040
Speaker 1: This actually was a common strategy across the country, particularly

869
00:45:29,120 --> 00:45:32,279
Speaker 1: the South. Like Cherniacs book is, like most mining and

870
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:35,520
Speaker 1: large construction projects in large chunks of the South had

871
00:45:35,560 --> 00:45:39,239
Speaker 1: some degree of press ganging people literally being forced to

872
00:45:39,320 --> 00:45:43,000
Speaker 1: work there. But in this particular case, Chenniac says, at

873
00:45:43,080 --> 00:45:46,440
Speaker 1: least based on the interviews that exist with surviving black labors,

874
00:45:46,680 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 1: most of those guys insisted that was not really a

875
00:45:49,640 --> 00:45:52,279
Speaker 1: part of this. You didn't need to write because of

876
00:45:52,320 --> 00:45:54,600
Speaker 1: how desperate the economic situation is.

877
00:45:55,280 --> 00:45:58,920
Speaker 2: I want the listeners to please appreciate the layers of

878
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:02,760
Speaker 2: deniability the company gives itself here, because they can say

879
00:46:03,440 --> 00:46:06,640
Speaker 2: nobody forced them on this job. They could have quit

880
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:09,879
Speaker 2: at any time, and likewise they could have said, well,

881
00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:13,239
Speaker 2: this subcontractor that actually did the work, we didn't tell

882
00:46:13,280 --> 00:46:16,319
Speaker 2: them to do dry drilling. We didn't tell them. It's

883
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:20,200
Speaker 2: like no, but you set an incentive and a deadline

884
00:46:20,680 --> 00:46:25,200
Speaker 2: that they couldn't meet unless they did. But you gave

885
00:46:25,239 --> 00:46:28,600
Speaker 2: your self deniability, And I cannot tell you how many

886
00:46:28,640 --> 00:46:32,839
Speaker 2: of history's horrors have worked that way where it's like, well,

887
00:46:32,880 --> 00:46:34,440
Speaker 2: we didn't tell them to do that. It's like, no,

888
00:46:35,600 --> 00:46:39,080
Speaker 2: you gave them parameters that could only be met if

889
00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:41,439
Speaker 2: they did X, Y and z, even though you did

890
00:46:41,440 --> 00:46:43,279
Speaker 2: not explicitly tell them to do X, y and z.

891
00:46:43,600 --> 00:46:46,480
Speaker 2: X and X, y and z are atrocities. Like you

892
00:46:46,520 --> 00:46:49,160
Speaker 2: didn't have to spell it out. You simply gave them

893
00:46:49,160 --> 00:46:51,279
Speaker 2: a situation where the only way to do the thing

894
00:46:51,320 --> 00:46:54,800
Speaker 2: you asked them to do was to cut these corners.

895
00:46:55,160 --> 00:46:57,799
Speaker 2: And likewise they can say, well, these weren't slaves. It's

896
00:46:57,840 --> 00:46:59,680
Speaker 2: not like some of these other minds where they literally

897
00:46:59,680 --> 00:47:02,319
Speaker 2: made them work at gunpoint. These people came there voluntarily

898
00:47:02,800 --> 00:47:04,600
Speaker 2: and they got paid, and they could have they didn't

899
00:47:04,680 --> 00:47:06,239
Speaker 2: like it. If they felt it was unsafe, they could

900
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:11,000
Speaker 2: have quit. And it's like in the strictest sense, maybe,

901
00:47:11,360 --> 00:47:13,040
Speaker 2: but not as a practical matter.

902
00:47:13,640 --> 00:47:19,240
Speaker 1: No, Yeah, and yeah, it's it's uh, we'll be getting

903
00:47:19,239 --> 00:47:22,319
Speaker 1: into that even more here because it's it's actually like

904
00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:26,040
Speaker 1: worse than I have I have laid out already. I

905
00:47:26,040 --> 00:47:28,280
Speaker 1: should also note that a lot of these these migrant

906
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:30,640
Speaker 1: black labors are still from West Virginia, right if you

907
00:47:30,680 --> 00:47:32,319
Speaker 1: look at the known death toll, they're just from other

908
00:47:32,400 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 1: parts of the state. Right, So a huge number of

909
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:38,879
Speaker 1: these migrating labors they come from deeper in the South,

910
00:47:38,920 --> 00:47:42,759
Speaker 1: from places like Georgia, from the Carolinas, and they're they're

911
00:47:42,800 --> 00:47:45,280
Speaker 1: in West Virginia on their way north.

912
00:47:45,600 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 2: Right.

913
00:47:46,239 --> 00:47:48,640
Speaker 1: The plan is, we need to get out of the South.

914
00:47:48,760 --> 00:47:52,120
Speaker 1: Jim Crow is too horrifying. I'm going to take this gig.

915
00:47:52,320 --> 00:47:54,440
Speaker 1: A lot of them bring their families with them, right,

916
00:47:54,440 --> 00:47:55,920
Speaker 1: because they're like, I'm going to take this gig. I'm

917
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:57,960
Speaker 1: going to make you know, enough money, and then we'll

918
00:47:57,960 --> 00:48:00,279
Speaker 1: get set up in some nor in you know, will

919
00:48:00,280 --> 00:48:01,800
Speaker 1: get set up in like New York or wherever.

920
00:48:01,920 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 2: Right.

921
00:48:02,960 --> 00:48:05,919
Speaker 1: That's the goal is to make money that will allow

922
00:48:06,000 --> 00:48:07,359
Speaker 1: them to get to a place where they have some

923
00:48:07,480 --> 00:48:10,240
Speaker 1: kind of hope of a future as opposed to staying

924
00:48:10,400 --> 00:48:13,040
Speaker 1: in the Jim Crow South. But one of the issues

925
00:48:13,080 --> 00:48:15,200
Speaker 1: this causes is that, like there's nowhere for a lot

926
00:48:15,200 --> 00:48:17,239
Speaker 1: of their families to stay. They're not allowed in the

927
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:19,960
Speaker 1: mining camps, they're not really welcome in the nearby town. So,

928
00:48:20,040 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 1: like I think a lot of these people basically just

929
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 1: wind up kind of camping near the mining town because

930
00:48:25,680 --> 00:48:28,120
Speaker 1: like there's there's not a lot of options open for them.

931
00:48:28,680 --> 00:48:31,480
Speaker 1: I should also note that the white migrant workers suffered

932
00:48:31,480 --> 00:48:34,360
Speaker 1: from a form of discrimination by the townies of Galli

933
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:37,520
Speaker 1: Bridge as well the urban population. The people who actually

934
00:48:37,600 --> 00:48:41,360
Speaker 1: live in this town consider themsel there's a conflict because,

935
00:48:41,920 --> 00:48:44,480
Speaker 1: you know, being miners and being these like you know,

936
00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:48,000
Speaker 1: industrial labors is such a part of like the conception

937
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:50,280
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people in West Virginia

938
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:53,560
Speaker 1: today have of like their past. This gets lost a lot,

939
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:55,520
Speaker 1: but at the time, if you lived in a town

940
00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:57,520
Speaker 1: or a city in West Virginia, there was a good

941
00:48:57,600 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 1: chance that you hated miners, right because they're they're bad

942
00:49:01,360 --> 00:49:04,359
Speaker 1: for your your rep as a state. Right, These like

943
00:49:04,520 --> 00:49:08,560
Speaker 1: backwards poor coal miners, these like you know, dirty rural

944
00:49:08,600 --> 00:49:11,879
Speaker 1: folk who are unsophisticated. We in the cities are much more,

945
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:16,120
Speaker 1: you know, are much better people. So there's this kind

946
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:18,800
Speaker 1: of like attitude that a lot of these these miners

947
00:49:18,840 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 1: who are out of work and who are coming to

948
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:24,360
Speaker 1: this project should have you know, invested the money they

949
00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:26,920
Speaker 1: had back when mining was booming better, and the fact

950
00:49:26,920 --> 00:49:29,000
Speaker 1: that they were like poor and desperate now was their

951
00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:31,600
Speaker 1: own fault, right. There are that co. That is a

952
00:49:31,680 --> 00:49:34,160
Speaker 1: conflict that exists in this situation. It's not one that

953
00:49:34,200 --> 00:49:38,040
Speaker 1: I think it's talked about a lot today. So the

954
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:41,480
Speaker 1: living situations enjoyed by black and white workers at the

955
00:49:41,520 --> 00:49:45,560
Speaker 1: mining camps were wildly different. Everyone does live in tar

956
00:49:45,640 --> 00:49:48,600
Speaker 1: paper shacks that are roughly twelve feet by fifteen feet,

957
00:49:48,800 --> 00:49:52,120
Speaker 1: but that's where the similarity ends in For white workers,

958
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 1: these twelve foot by fifteen foot shacks are divided into

959
00:49:54,640 --> 00:49:57,680
Speaker 1: two rooms, and there's two workers living in each room.

960
00:49:57,840 --> 00:49:58,040
Speaker 2: Right.

961
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:01,320
Speaker 1: Their shacks also have electricities, They've got lights and stuff.

962
00:50:02,120 --> 00:50:04,839
Speaker 1: The shanties for black workers are very different from one thing.

963
00:50:04,880 --> 00:50:07,520
Speaker 1: They have no electricity, although they have to pay the

964
00:50:07,600 --> 00:50:11,120
Speaker 1: company a fee for electricity. The company's literally making them

965
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:14,799
Speaker 1: pay out of their paychecks for nothing. Their shacks are

966
00:50:14,800 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 1: also more than twice as crowded. While an entire shack

967
00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:20,279
Speaker 1: would hold four white workers, there were often ten to

968
00:50:20,520 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 1: fifteen black workers in the same space. I'm going to

969
00:50:23,520 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 1: quote again from that article in vantage point. Imagine the

970
00:50:26,680 --> 00:50:29,160
Speaker 1: stench of body odor in such cramped quarters. All the

971
00:50:29,200 --> 00:50:32,279
Speaker 1: shacks were provided empty, so occupants had to buy bed linens, coal,

972
00:50:32,320 --> 00:50:35,239
Speaker 1: and if wanted a stove from the company. Commissary to

973
00:50:35,320 --> 00:50:38,080
Speaker 1: drive out any remaining workers. The shacks were burned down

974
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:43,399
Speaker 1: at the end of the project. So that's that's good. Yeah,

975
00:50:43,480 --> 00:50:46,000
Speaker 1: we're surely seeing a lot of care being given to

976
00:50:46,040 --> 00:50:49,000
Speaker 1: these people since they had to live at the work camp.

977
00:50:49,040 --> 00:50:51,719
Speaker 1: Their actual take home wages are much less than what

978
00:50:51,760 --> 00:50:54,319
Speaker 1: had been advertised before. When you get right down to it,

979
00:50:54,320 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 1: these guys are getting about half or more like forty

980
00:50:56,520 --> 00:50:59,160
Speaker 1: percent of what they were told they'd be getting because

981
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:01,800
Speaker 1: so much is taken out of them in order to

982
00:51:01,840 --> 00:51:03,400
Speaker 1: pay for them to live at this camp. Right, the

983
00:51:03,440 --> 00:51:06,040
Speaker 1: company's not going to foot that bill. You know, you

984
00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 1: don't have any option to fight back though, because if

985
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:11,279
Speaker 1: you're a migrant laborer, you show up here with no

986
00:51:11,400 --> 00:51:13,840
Speaker 1: money in your pocket. Right, So if you learn that

987
00:51:13,920 --> 00:51:15,800
Speaker 1: this is kind of a con that you're not getting

988
00:51:15,840 --> 00:51:18,239
Speaker 1: near the as much as you were promised, well, how

989
00:51:18,239 --> 00:51:19,440
Speaker 1: are you going to get back home? You don't have

990
00:51:19,440 --> 00:51:21,360
Speaker 1: any money, You don't have any food on you like

991
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:24,200
Speaker 1: you have no You either starve or you finish the

992
00:51:24,320 --> 00:51:26,799
Speaker 1: job for like the pittance that they're going to throw you.

993
00:51:26,880 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 1: So to work, these guys went where. They soon learned

994
00:51:30,000 --> 00:51:33,120
Speaker 1: that for black laborers, even the promise of getting paid

995
00:51:33,160 --> 00:51:37,280
Speaker 1: at all was exaggerated. White workers received their payment promptly.

996
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:40,839
Speaker 1: Black workers are paid in script, right, which is a

997
00:51:40,960 --> 00:51:43,640
Speaker 1: They get a card that says you're owed this money,

998
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:47,200
Speaker 1: but you can only use this money in company stores

999
00:51:47,239 --> 00:51:49,960
Speaker 1: to purchase necessities. And I'm going to quote from Cherneyacts

1000
00:51:50,000 --> 00:51:53,799
Speaker 1: book again. Deductions for food and clothing at the camp

1001
00:51:53,840 --> 00:51:56,520
Speaker 1: commissary could be made directly from the script ticket. The

1002
00:51:56,520 --> 00:51:58,839
Speaker 1: ticket could also be redeemed for cash, but only at

1003
00:51:58,880 --> 00:52:01,600
Speaker 1: the end of the weekly paid period. Between these times,

1004
00:52:01,600 --> 00:52:03,560
Speaker 1: the worker had to pay a ten percent commission to

1005
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:06,720
Speaker 1: receive cash. The system served to keep black workers dependent

1006
00:52:06,840 --> 00:52:09,320
Speaker 1: on the company for goods and services. The rationale for

1007
00:52:09,400 --> 00:52:11,760
Speaker 1: the system offered by the company was that the memories

1008
00:52:11,760 --> 00:52:14,160
Speaker 1: of black workers would not last through a pay period,

1009
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:16,640
Speaker 1: and thus the use of script would minimize the number

1010
00:52:16,680 --> 00:52:19,080
Speaker 1: of arguments over the amount of the daily wage. So

1011
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:21,560
Speaker 1: white workers are getting paid like every day you finish

1012
00:52:21,640 --> 00:52:24,200
Speaker 1: your shift, you get cash in hand. Black workers are

1013
00:52:24,200 --> 00:52:27,440
Speaker 1: given a card that they have to pay additional money

1014
00:52:27,440 --> 00:52:30,200
Speaker 1: out of in order to get the pay that they

1015
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:34,040
Speaker 1: were promised. And the justification is, well, you black people,

1016
00:52:34,080 --> 00:52:38,080
Speaker 1: you can't remember that you're owed any money, right, it's

1017
00:52:38,160 --> 00:52:42,600
Speaker 1: pretty racist, pretty openly raisist. Right. And again cheriny Echle,

1018
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:44,720
Speaker 1: note this is not uncommon for the time.

1019
00:52:45,520 --> 00:52:47,759
Speaker 2: I don't want to be glib here, but I find

1020
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:50,440
Speaker 2: it fascinating that that old song from the forties, that

1021
00:52:50,600 --> 00:52:55,560
Speaker 2: sixteen tons song, Yeah, you load sixteen tons and tell.

1022
00:52:55,480 --> 00:52:58,200
Speaker 1: You you get another day, older and deeper in debt.

1023
00:52:58,719 --> 00:53:01,439
Speaker 2: The fact, the fact that that's song hates a much

1024
00:53:01,640 --> 00:53:05,000
Speaker 2: rosier picture of mine than this reality of the story

1025
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:08,200
Speaker 2: we're telling here. Like that, like that's almost a romantic version.

1026
00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:10,919
Speaker 2: It's literally about a man who can't go to heaven

1027
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:14,000
Speaker 2: because he owes his soul to the company store because

1028
00:53:14,000 --> 00:53:17,000
Speaker 2: he's so much because he's only getting paid in company

1029
00:53:17,000 --> 00:53:19,239
Speaker 2: store credit, and it just keeps getting worse every day.

1030
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:21,640
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, even that song actually paints kind of

1031
00:53:21,760 --> 00:53:24,280
Speaker 2: a sunnier picture than what actually was happening.

1032
00:53:24,680 --> 00:53:28,799
Speaker 1: Yep, yeah, it's I mean, there's really no bottom to it.

1033
00:53:28,920 --> 00:53:32,080
Speaker 1: But speaking of things, there's no bottom too. There's no

1034
00:53:32,160 --> 00:53:36,680
Speaker 1: bottom to the love I have for the courageous corporations

1035
00:53:36,880 --> 00:53:42,480
Speaker 1: that sponsor this podcast. So please everybody, here we go,

1036
00:53:43,400 --> 00:53:52,520
Speaker 1: ads and we're back. Oh boy, good times. We're had

1037
00:53:52,560 --> 00:53:55,960
Speaker 1: by all I'm feeling happy. Yeah, So before we get

1038
00:53:56,040 --> 00:53:58,040
Speaker 1: much further, I think it'll be valuable to give the

1039
00:53:58,080 --> 00:54:01,080
Speaker 1: listener and an idea of precisely how the work proceeded

1040
00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:05,640
Speaker 1: on this project, since I based on and our data

1041
00:54:05,760 --> 00:54:08,160
Speaker 1: isn't perfect here, you know, we it's been a while

1042
00:54:08,200 --> 00:54:11,640
Speaker 1: since the last listener's survey. But I think, Sophie correct

1043
00:54:11,640 --> 00:54:14,239
Speaker 1: me if I'm wrong here, less than half of our

1044
00:54:14,280 --> 00:54:18,120
Speaker 1: listeners are professional tunnel diggers or mining engineers, right.

1045
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:19,920
Speaker 2: I think it's about thirty two percent.

1046
00:54:20,480 --> 00:54:22,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, And that's a big difference for Jason and I

1047
00:54:22,600 --> 00:54:25,080
Speaker 1: because Jason, if I'm not mistaken, about seventy percent of

1048
00:54:25,120 --> 00:54:27,680
Speaker 1: the audience that cracked were professional tunnel diggers.

1049
00:54:27,719 --> 00:54:30,160
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, That's why we had so many articles on

1050
00:54:30,160 --> 00:54:33,360
Speaker 2: the subject. It is like the six Funniest things about

1051
00:54:33,640 --> 00:54:37,880
Speaker 2: when your mind cart overturns at the end of your shift.

1052
00:54:38,120 --> 00:54:40,960
Speaker 2: And everybody nodded. Everybody nodded. Know what we were talking about?

1053
00:54:41,880 --> 00:54:47,520
Speaker 1: Eight things you learn getting black lung. So here's Cherniac

1054
00:54:47,600 --> 00:54:50,440
Speaker 1: describing this is like the what what the daily workload

1055
00:54:50,600 --> 00:54:54,160
Speaker 1: looks like for most of these tunnel guys. Drilling preceded

1056
00:54:54,160 --> 00:54:56,680
Speaker 1: by the standard heading in bench method named for the

1057
00:54:56,760 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 1: vertical and horizontal planes of the drilling axis. Routinely sixteen

1058
00:55:00,560 --> 00:55:04,279
Speaker 1: drills were in simultaneous operation, tin boring horizontally into the

1059
00:55:04,280 --> 00:55:06,920
Speaker 1: heading face and six into the bench or stone platform

1060
00:55:06,960 --> 00:55:10,320
Speaker 1: as yet unexcavated, on which all the drillers worked. Holes

1061
00:55:10,320 --> 00:55:12,200
Speaker 1: were drilled for ten or twelve feet and packed with

1062
00:55:12,280 --> 00:55:15,680
Speaker 1: dynamite by powder monkeys. Typically a driller would drill two

1063
00:55:15,760 --> 00:55:18,040
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty feet of drill steel in a shift

1064
00:55:18,200 --> 00:55:21,680
Speaker 1: about twenty holes. Although the eighty pound anger saw drills

1065
00:55:21,680 --> 00:55:24,400
Speaker 1: were equipped with supports, drilling into the heading face required

1066
00:55:24,400 --> 00:55:26,840
Speaker 1: the work of a driller and an assistant. The easiest

1067
00:55:26,920 --> 00:55:29,600
Speaker 1: vertical drilling could be done by a single driller. When

1068
00:55:29,600 --> 00:55:31,960
Speaker 1: a charge was detonated and the debris cleaned away, the

1069
00:55:31,960 --> 00:55:34,319
Speaker 1: first bench would be leveled to the tunnel floor or

1070
00:55:34,400 --> 00:55:36,360
Speaker 1: invert on which a track could be laid for the

1071
00:55:36,400 --> 00:55:39,080
Speaker 1: movement of heavy equipment, and the whole crew would advance.

1072
00:55:39,360 --> 00:55:41,920
Speaker 1: The heading, now cleared of rock, became the new drilling bench.

1073
00:55:42,120 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 1: If the tunnel was wide enough, more than one bench

1074
00:55:44,120 --> 00:55:46,760
Speaker 1: could be drilled at a time. The bottom bench segment

1075
00:55:47,040 --> 00:55:49,920
Speaker 1: rose from five to fifteen feet above the floor. Hence,

1076
00:55:50,000 --> 00:55:52,160
Speaker 1: in the narrower parts of the tunnel, a single drill

1077
00:55:52,239 --> 00:55:55,800
Speaker 1: crew could suffice. Either two drills were assigned to enlarge portions,

1078
00:55:55,880 --> 00:55:57,920
Speaker 1: or the bottom bench was removed at a later point.

1079
00:55:58,200 --> 00:56:02,759
Speaker 1: This at least describes a typical opera. So that's basically

1080
00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:05,360
Speaker 1: how it works, right, that's physically like kind of what's

1081
00:56:05,400 --> 00:56:08,360
Speaker 1: going on here, right, You drill holes, shove dynamine at them,

1082
00:56:08,440 --> 00:56:11,799
Speaker 1: blow them up. Then the whole crew advances. Right, So

1083
00:56:12,040 --> 00:56:15,759
Speaker 1: shortly after the drilling begins in earnest, they start analyzing

1084
00:56:15,800 --> 00:56:17,879
Speaker 1: the rock that they're pulling out of this tunnel as

1085
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:21,160
Speaker 1: they blast their way through it, and coal is I

1086
00:56:21,200 --> 00:56:24,680
Speaker 1: think like three or four percent silica usually, and obviously

1087
00:56:24,719 --> 00:56:27,440
Speaker 1: that's enough that after years in the tunnel you can

1088
00:56:27,440 --> 00:56:31,520
Speaker 1: get silicosis. The rock they're digging out of the Hawk's

1089
00:56:31,520 --> 00:56:35,239
Speaker 1: Nest tunnel is almost one hundred percent pure silica. Like

1090
00:56:35,280 --> 00:56:37,960
Speaker 1: it is. It is so pure it basically does not

1091
00:56:38,200 --> 00:56:41,000
Speaker 1: need refining in order to be used in because this

1092
00:56:41,080 --> 00:56:42,520
Speaker 1: is how you like make glass. You make a bunch

1093
00:56:42,520 --> 00:56:44,919
Speaker 1: of shit out of silica. You don't need to even

1094
00:56:45,000 --> 00:56:47,279
Speaker 1: like do anything. This this shit is like almost like

1095
00:56:47,400 --> 00:56:50,719
Speaker 1: industrially pure as it comes out of the ground. Now,

1096
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:54,520
Speaker 1: that's great for Union Carbide because they're looking at making

1097
00:56:54,560 --> 00:56:58,279
Speaker 1: all sorts of different alloys that require the use of silica. Right,

1098
00:56:59,280 --> 00:57:02,840
Speaker 1: The Appellation Studies Association notes, quote, during the construction of

1099
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:05,920
Speaker 1: the tunnel, the work crews encountered silica rock. Fortunately for

1100
00:57:06,000 --> 00:57:08,480
Speaker 1: Union Carbide, the rock proved to be a valuable resource

1101
00:57:08,480 --> 00:57:11,160
Speaker 1: that could be used at the alloy industrial plant. In fact,

1102
00:57:11,200 --> 00:57:14,080
Speaker 1: the silica rock used to make ferro silicon, a component

1103
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:18,440
Speaker 1: of steel, saved Union Carbide millions of dollars. And because

1104
00:57:18,760 --> 00:57:20,920
Speaker 1: this is such like a windfall for them, they decides

1105
00:57:21,240 --> 00:57:24,439
Speaker 1: let's massively expand the size of the tunnel, right, let's

1106
00:57:24,480 --> 00:57:27,320
Speaker 1: make this a lot wider, which you know, in order

1107
00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:30,120
Speaker 1: to do that and stay on the timeframe, Ryan Hart

1108
00:57:30,160 --> 00:57:31,760
Speaker 1: and Dennis is going to have to put even more,

1109
00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:34,040
Speaker 1: hundreds of more guys underground, and they're going to have

1110
00:57:34,080 --> 00:57:36,400
Speaker 1: to keep them underground longer and longer shifts a lot

1111
00:57:36,440 --> 00:57:36,880
Speaker 1: of the time.

1112
00:57:37,320 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. Now that they realize that the rock

1113
00:57:40,200 --> 00:57:43,360
Speaker 2: they're getting out of there is an actual valuable substance

1114
00:57:43,400 --> 00:57:46,520
Speaker 2: that they are going to use, this of course becomes

1115
00:57:46,600 --> 00:57:50,320
Speaker 2: a mine. And I'm sure they filed the paper saying, hey, guys,

1116
00:57:50,560 --> 00:57:53,200
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, this is a mine. We're mining this stuff

1117
00:57:53,240 --> 00:57:56,160
Speaker 2: like the tunnel we need, but also this is functions

1118
00:57:56,160 --> 00:57:58,760
Speaker 2: of mind. Let's go ahead and please saddle us with

1119
00:57:58,840 --> 00:58:02,640
Speaker 2: the additional regulations, Yeah, because it would be irresponsible otherwise,

1120
00:58:02,640 --> 00:58:04,720
Speaker 2: because this is clearly a mine. At this point, we

1121
00:58:04,760 --> 00:58:08,280
Speaker 2: are mining silica for use in a factory. No I.

1122
00:58:08,680 --> 00:58:11,800
Speaker 1: Unfortunately, from what I can tell, it seems like you

1123
00:58:11,880 --> 00:58:14,440
Speaker 1: don't have to be regulated as a mine if the

1124
00:58:14,480 --> 00:58:17,920
Speaker 1: mining you're doing is a happy accident, right, if you

1125
00:58:17,960 --> 00:58:21,320
Speaker 1: get lucky, then no regulations at all. That's that's how

1126
00:58:21,360 --> 00:58:24,400
Speaker 1: the Industrial Code was written at the time. That's certainly

1127
00:58:24,400 --> 00:58:26,919
Speaker 1: how Union Carbide are acting. Right.

1128
00:58:27,080 --> 00:58:30,280
Speaker 2: Okay, but does the silica does know that it's not

1129
00:58:30,520 --> 00:58:31,320
Speaker 2: in a mine.

1130
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:35,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't seem to because it's getting everywhere here

1131
00:58:35,600 --> 00:58:37,960
Speaker 1: and they're not. Part of why it's getting everywhere is

1132
00:58:37,960 --> 00:58:41,440
Speaker 1: they're not wet drilling, right, because that's going to slow

1133
00:58:41,480 --> 00:58:44,240
Speaker 1: progress down. So reyin Hard and Davis are like, don't

1134
00:58:44,280 --> 00:58:47,000
Speaker 1: wet drill, and they also decide we're not going to

1135
00:58:47,080 --> 00:58:50,120
Speaker 1: give these tunnel the black tunnel labors are low skill

1136
00:58:50,240 --> 00:58:53,840
Speaker 1: labors respirators, right, because that's going to be too expensive.

1137
00:58:53,920 --> 00:58:56,520
Speaker 1: Now when this a lot of people die later, Union

1138
00:58:56,560 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 1: Carbide will say, well, there were no approved respirators for

1139
00:58:59,840 --> 00:59:04,520
Speaker 1: combatting silicosis. The regulatory agency, the Department of Mines, hadn't

1140
00:59:04,520 --> 00:59:08,200
Speaker 1: approved any. And it's technically correct because the Department of

1141
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:12,360
Speaker 1: Mines had made a list of recommended respirators for silicosis,

1142
00:59:12,600 --> 00:59:15,240
Speaker 1: but they had not listed them as approved because that

1143
00:59:15,360 --> 00:59:17,520
Speaker 1: wasn't the thing that they did. But they did not

1144
00:59:17,720 --> 00:59:21,440
Speaker 1: approve respirators for silicosis. All they did was recommend at

1145
00:59:21,440 --> 00:59:24,080
Speaker 1: that point. They changed the language a couple of years

1146
00:59:24,080 --> 00:59:25,960
Speaker 1: after this to approve to get around it. So the

1147
00:59:25,960 --> 00:59:28,360
Speaker 1: company's just saying, well, you didn't do the thing that

1148
00:59:28,440 --> 00:59:31,320
Speaker 1: you never did for this, and ignoring the fact that, like, yeah,

1149
00:59:31,320 --> 00:59:33,080
Speaker 1: but there was a list of respirators they said would

1150
00:59:33,080 --> 00:59:35,280
Speaker 1: definitely work for this that you should have when you're

1151
00:59:35,320 --> 00:59:37,640
Speaker 1: doing this kind of mining. It's just like it's like

1152
00:59:37,680 --> 00:59:40,000
Speaker 1: we were talking about earlier. It's the ways in which you've

1153
00:59:40,000 --> 00:59:42,880
Speaker 1: got enough lawyers that'll tell you like, oh no, it's okay,

1154
00:59:42,960 --> 00:59:45,120
Speaker 1: we can kill these people because like there's this this

1155
00:59:45,200 --> 00:59:47,760
Speaker 1: kind of like this little jink in the wording of

1156
00:59:47,760 --> 00:59:49,439
Speaker 1: the law that we can get around, you know.

1157
00:59:50,240 --> 00:59:52,880
Speaker 2: And any one of those people if they had had

1158
00:59:52,880 --> 00:59:56,240
Speaker 2: to send their own son, oh well the other or

1159
00:59:56,280 --> 00:59:59,680
Speaker 2: best friend into that mind would not dare let them

1160
00:59:59,680 --> 01:00:03,040
Speaker 2: go in without something like on a human level. That's

1161
01:00:03,080 --> 01:00:04,919
Speaker 2: the whole thing about all of this, is it It lets

1162
01:00:04,960 --> 01:00:09,080
Speaker 2: you completely detach yourself from the humanity of the decision.

1163
01:00:09,160 --> 01:00:12,240
Speaker 2: And also the fact that one load of the silica

1164
01:00:12,280 --> 01:00:16,360
Speaker 2: they hauled out of there would have paid for the respirators.

1165
01:00:16,400 --> 01:00:19,320
Speaker 2: The amount of money they made from just one batch

1166
01:00:19,360 --> 01:00:21,800
Speaker 2: of that probably would have covered the equipment.

1167
01:00:22,040 --> 01:00:25,320
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's you know, further to your point about

1168
01:00:25,360 --> 01:00:27,480
Speaker 1: like if they were sending their loved ones and they

1169
01:00:27,520 --> 01:00:31,200
Speaker 1: would have respirators. All of the skilled white workers, right

1170
01:00:31,320 --> 01:00:33,880
Speaker 1: the machine operators and stuff who are doing these high

1171
01:00:33,880 --> 01:00:36,560
Speaker 1: skilled jobs, the engineers that are overseeing it, and the

1172
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:39,600
Speaker 1: management who are coming into like check in on the project,

1173
01:00:40,000 --> 01:00:44,080
Speaker 1: they are all issued respirators. It's just it's basically just

1174
01:00:44,560 --> 01:00:46,960
Speaker 1: some of the unskilled white workers and all of the

1175
01:00:46,960 --> 01:00:50,160
Speaker 1: black workers who don't have respirators. The other thing the

1176
01:00:50,200 --> 01:00:53,120
Speaker 1: company does, so the two ways you're getting exposed to silica.

1177
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:55,320
Speaker 1: One when they're drilling, it creates a lot of dust

1178
01:00:55,360 --> 01:00:58,600
Speaker 1: because they're dry drilling. And two when they detonate explosives

1179
01:00:58,680 --> 01:01:01,440
Speaker 1: it obviously it fills the ton with dust. Right, So

1180
01:01:01,760 --> 01:01:03,600
Speaker 1: this is a known problem. This is a non issue.

1181
01:01:03,600 --> 01:01:05,400
Speaker 1: And the way that you deal with that is very simple.

1182
01:01:05,600 --> 01:01:08,200
Speaker 1: You wait a while right after you blow it. You

1183
01:01:08,240 --> 01:01:10,800
Speaker 1: sit and you wait until the dust falls down, and

1184
01:01:10,840 --> 01:01:12,320
Speaker 1: then you can go in there and you're not going

1185
01:01:12,360 --> 01:01:16,120
Speaker 1: to breathe it in. But that means it'll take longer

1186
01:01:16,360 --> 01:01:19,360
Speaker 1: to make progress. So pushed by this, you know, you

1187
01:01:19,400 --> 01:01:21,560
Speaker 1: get two hundred fifty bucks a day. The faster you work.

1188
01:01:21,600 --> 01:01:25,160
Speaker 1: Reinhart and Dennis cuts the time back into the tunnel,

1189
01:01:25,160 --> 01:01:28,080
Speaker 1: And basically they're shoving workers in there immediately after the

1190
01:01:28,120 --> 01:01:30,720
Speaker 1: detonation to just get back into it, even though that

1191
01:01:30,760 --> 01:01:34,080
Speaker 1: means these guys are walking through clouds of silica dust

1192
01:01:34,440 --> 01:01:37,080
Speaker 1: so thick that they cannot see their hand in front

1193
01:01:37,120 --> 01:01:40,720
Speaker 1: of their face. The American Society of Safety Professionals noted

1194
01:01:40,760 --> 01:01:44,080
Speaker 1: in their analysis quote a break between shifts was alleged

1195
01:01:44,120 --> 01:01:46,640
Speaker 1: to be two hours to allow the dust to settle. However,

1196
01:01:46,680 --> 01:01:49,200
Speaker 1: in as few as thirty minutes, supervisors often sent the

1197
01:01:49,240 --> 01:01:51,240
Speaker 1: next shift three hundred to four hundred feet down the

1198
01:01:51,240 --> 01:01:54,600
Speaker 1: tunnel into the swirling dust cloud with visibility restricted to

1199
01:01:54,600 --> 01:01:59,040
Speaker 1: three to five feet now when black tunnel workers would

1200
01:01:59,280 --> 01:02:02,320
Speaker 1: fight through this cloud and get back to their workstations,

1201
01:02:02,640 --> 01:02:05,120
Speaker 1: the air is just dust. And I found a single

1202
01:02:05,200 --> 01:02:07,960
Speaker 1: sentence in a paper by the Oxford American magazine that

1203
01:02:08,080 --> 01:02:11,320
Speaker 1: drives home how fucked up this is. By some reports,

1204
01:02:11,320 --> 01:02:14,280
Speaker 1: conditions were so dusty that the workers drinking water turned

1205
01:02:14,360 --> 01:02:17,680
Speaker 1: white as milk, and the glassy air sliced at their eyes.

1206
01:02:18,440 --> 01:02:21,520
Speaker 2: We cannot convey how nasty this dust is. Like the

1207
01:02:21,800 --> 01:02:23,880
Speaker 2: dust we've all had to breed dust, we've all had

1208
01:02:23,920 --> 01:02:27,600
Speaker 2: to breed smoke. This is a nasty brand of dust,

1209
01:02:28,040 --> 01:02:30,840
Speaker 2: like that wording that it like as like glass, as

1210
01:02:30,840 --> 01:02:34,760
Speaker 2: slashes at your eyes, like it's tiny little razor sharp

1211
01:02:34,880 --> 01:02:38,680
Speaker 2: microscopic particles. Yeah, I cannot imagine.

1212
01:02:38,320 --> 01:02:41,520
Speaker 1: You're just inhaling little razor blades almost right, Like that's

1213
01:02:41,560 --> 01:02:44,280
Speaker 1: the degree of like damage this is doing to you.

1214
01:02:44,920 --> 01:02:46,920
Speaker 1: So it shouldn't surprise you to note that after a

1215
01:02:46,960 --> 01:02:49,160
Speaker 1: fairly short period of time, the men working in these

1216
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:51,040
Speaker 1: tunnels realized that they had been put in a very

1217
01:02:51,120 --> 01:02:54,760
Speaker 1: dangerous situation. They attempted to force the company to let

1218
01:02:54,760 --> 01:02:58,520
Speaker 1: them wait longer after blasts to avoid exposing themselves to dust.

1219
01:02:59,120 --> 01:03:02,040
Speaker 1: Rheinhart and Dennis reacted with violence, and they actually sent

1220
01:03:02,120 --> 01:03:05,760
Speaker 1: in armed security to beat these black laborers until they

1221
01:03:05,760 --> 01:03:08,080
Speaker 1: would re enter the tunnel. Often right after a blast,

1222
01:03:08,280 --> 01:03:10,760
Speaker 1: they would just start like shoving people in to like

1223
01:03:10,880 --> 01:03:14,000
Speaker 1: get into this smoke filled tunnel and would just start

1224
01:03:14,000 --> 01:03:17,000
Speaker 1: wailing on them if they didn't move fast enough. One

1225
01:03:17,040 --> 01:03:19,720
Speaker 1: white engineer recalled, I have heard quite a few times

1226
01:03:19,720 --> 01:03:22,000
Speaker 1: that they used pick handles or a drill set and

1227
01:03:22,080 --> 01:03:26,920
Speaker 1: knock them in the head with it, so pretty horrifying.

1228
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:31,080
Speaker 1: And obviously I talked about how with coal, I think

1229
01:03:31,120 --> 01:03:33,880
Speaker 1: you're looking at two to four percent silica generally in

1230
01:03:34,200 --> 01:03:37,760
Speaker 1: the coal you're mining, and that's dangerous, right, that'll give

1231
01:03:37,760 --> 01:03:40,800
Speaker 1: you the black lung after a while. But the concentration

1232
01:03:40,880 --> 01:03:45,160
Speaker 1: of silica in this tunnel is many orders of magnitude

1233
01:03:45,200 --> 01:03:48,320
Speaker 1: higher than that, and so people don't take years to

1234
01:03:48,400 --> 01:03:51,760
Speaker 1: get miners lung. They get sick immediately and their symptoms

1235
01:03:51,800 --> 01:03:55,600
Speaker 1: progressed to fatal at a calamitous rate. The first deaths

1236
01:03:55,800 --> 01:03:59,520
Speaker 1: among tunnel workers happened two months after the start of digging.

1237
01:04:00,280 --> 01:04:03,680
Speaker 1: That's how quickly this shit kills, right, you know, you're

1238
01:04:03,680 --> 01:04:08,440
Speaker 1: not talking anything like normal miners lung people are dropping

1239
01:04:09,560 --> 01:04:12,560
Speaker 1: right after they start, before they really even get settled

1240
01:04:12,560 --> 01:04:13,280
Speaker 1: into the job.

1241
01:04:13,640 --> 01:04:16,600
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no way that they're not coughing the

1242
01:04:16,800 --> 01:04:19,120
Speaker 2: entire time they're in there. There's no way that they

1243
01:04:19,120 --> 01:04:21,520
Speaker 2: are not coughing up blood at some point, because that's

1244
01:04:21,560 --> 01:04:23,640
Speaker 2: what happens. When you cough long enough, you start to

1245
01:04:23,680 --> 01:04:26,720
Speaker 2: tear up you esophagus in your lungs. Like if you're

1246
01:04:26,840 --> 01:04:30,000
Speaker 2: inhaling enough to give yourself solicosis after a couple months,

1247
01:04:30,040 --> 01:04:33,840
Speaker 2: that means you knew you were breathing air that burned

1248
01:04:34,280 --> 01:04:36,800
Speaker 2: ye when you breathe it, Like everyone in that tunnel.

1249
01:04:36,840 --> 01:04:40,640
Speaker 2: Everyone's supervising that tunnel. Everyone everyone knew. I don't care

1250
01:04:41,040 --> 01:04:43,280
Speaker 2: if you had never worked in a mine a day

1251
01:04:43,320 --> 01:04:45,480
Speaker 2: in your life, if you had never seen a mine

1252
01:04:45,600 --> 01:04:49,000
Speaker 2: or heard of a mine. If a small child was

1253
01:04:49,040 --> 01:04:52,000
Speaker 2: brought there and asked, do you think it's safe to

1254
01:04:52,120 --> 01:04:56,120
Speaker 2: work in here? The child would say no, the air

1255
01:04:56,240 --> 01:04:59,400
Speaker 2: burns to breathe. You know, you don't need to be

1256
01:04:59,440 --> 01:05:04,160
Speaker 2: a doctor. Like any ignorance was claimed later is laughable.

1257
01:05:04,520 --> 01:05:07,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, And we will talk about the company doctors in

1258
01:05:07,920 --> 01:05:10,800
Speaker 1: the next episode. But one of the things I should

1259
01:05:10,800 --> 01:05:14,200
Speaker 1: notice that, like, not only is this obvious. As you stated,

1260
01:05:14,520 --> 01:05:17,560
Speaker 1: there's a diagnosis of what's killing these men very quickly.

1261
01:05:17,640 --> 01:05:21,080
Speaker 1: There's a company more tician. The first twelve deceased workers

1262
01:05:21,120 --> 01:05:24,080
Speaker 1: that he gets in his office, he cuts into their

1263
01:05:24,200 --> 01:05:28,880
Speaker 1: lungs and he diagnoses them with scilicosis. This happens very quickly,

1264
01:05:29,320 --> 01:05:32,520
Speaker 1: and when it happens, panic discussions erupted among Reinhardt and

1265
01:05:32,560 --> 01:05:36,040
Speaker 1: Morris officers and as well as the union carbyte officers

1266
01:05:36,080 --> 01:05:38,960
Speaker 1: overseeing them. The responsible thing to do, the thing you

1267
01:05:39,000 --> 01:05:41,640
Speaker 1: should do when this happens is shut down construction and

1268
01:05:41,720 --> 01:05:44,600
Speaker 1: rework your safety plan to mitigate this. That's not what

1269
01:05:44,640 --> 01:05:47,440
Speaker 1: they did. They make public denials that there's any danger

1270
01:05:47,440 --> 01:05:50,080
Speaker 1: in the tunnel. They say that the sickness is just

1271
01:05:50,120 --> 01:05:53,320
Speaker 1: this is a communicable disease, basically, like the flu is

1272
01:05:53,400 --> 01:05:55,920
Speaker 1: running around. Everybody's getting the flu. You galla got pneumonia.

1273
01:05:55,920 --> 01:05:59,400
Speaker 1: It's fine, don't worry, guys, it's tuberculosis. You're good, you know,

1274
01:05:59,520 --> 01:06:02,640
Speaker 1: Just try to wash your hands better. So to compensate

1275
01:06:02,640 --> 01:06:04,760
Speaker 1: for the fact though that like this is tearing through

1276
01:06:04,800 --> 01:06:07,160
Speaker 1: their labor force at an accelerated rate, a lot of

1277
01:06:07,200 --> 01:06:09,360
Speaker 1: guys are getting too sick to work. They have to

1278
01:06:09,480 --> 01:06:12,320
Speaker 1: accelerate their recruiting. They have to start pulling even more

1279
01:06:12,400 --> 01:06:14,920
Speaker 1: men into this mind and the goal is very simple,

1280
01:06:15,320 --> 01:06:18,520
Speaker 1: finish the project fast and then deal with the fact that,

1281
01:06:18,600 --> 01:06:21,400
Speaker 1: like you're getting all these people killed, right, because then

1282
01:06:21,400 --> 01:06:25,160
Speaker 1: you'll have the money to handle it. So that's part one. Jason,

1283
01:06:26,080 --> 01:06:28,960
Speaker 1: how we feeling well again?

1284
01:06:29,160 --> 01:06:32,520
Speaker 2: I know that this episode ended on a downer, but

1285
01:06:33,080 --> 01:06:36,400
Speaker 2: I'm sure that in part two, all of these people

1286
01:06:36,440 --> 01:06:39,560
Speaker 2: making these decisions, they're going to get what they deserve.

1287
01:06:40,000 --> 01:06:43,120
Speaker 2: Like they they're going to regret. They're going to rue

1288
01:06:43,160 --> 01:06:48,480
Speaker 2: the day they they didn't try to be human beings

1289
01:06:48,520 --> 01:06:49,680
Speaker 2: for once.

1290
01:06:50,240 --> 01:06:52,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the This is the one episode of

1291
01:06:52,240 --> 01:06:56,040
Speaker 1: our show that's going to end with justice for the aggrieved.

1292
01:06:56,160 --> 01:06:58,520
Speaker 1: So everybody look forward to that in part two. We're

1293
01:06:58,520 --> 01:07:01,520
Speaker 1: not lying to you. This is not a con. Another

1294
01:07:01,560 --> 01:07:04,120
Speaker 1: thing that's not a con, Jason, is your new book.

1295
01:07:04,160 --> 01:07:05,480
Speaker 1: Do you want to talk about it a little bit

1296
01:07:05,520 --> 01:07:06,439
Speaker 1: as we close out here?

1297
01:07:07,800 --> 01:07:11,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. Zoe Is Too Drunk for the Dystopia.

1298
01:07:11,480 --> 01:07:14,520
Speaker 2: These are science fiction novels. The first two. The first

1299
01:07:14,520 --> 01:07:17,760
Speaker 2: one is called Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits. The second

1300
01:07:17,800 --> 01:07:20,760
Speaker 2: one is called Zoe Punches to Future, and the Dick.

1301
01:07:21,080 --> 01:07:23,640
Speaker 2: The first two are available on Kindall unlimited. If you're

1302
01:07:23,640 --> 01:07:26,160
Speaker 2: one of those people, it would be free. Otherwise you

1303
01:07:26,160 --> 01:07:29,439
Speaker 2: can probably get them at a used bookstore for dirt cheap. Yeah.

1304
01:07:29,560 --> 01:07:32,200
Speaker 2: I steal a copy from somewhere.

1305
01:07:32,440 --> 01:07:35,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jacket. You know, if you're listening to this show,

1306
01:07:35,520 --> 01:07:39,440
Speaker 1: you like Dystopia's, you're fascinated by collapse, and you're probably

1307
01:07:39,440 --> 01:07:45,120
Speaker 1: interested in the idea of a weirdo libertarian future, independent

1308
01:07:45,200 --> 01:07:51,680
Speaker 1: city state in the desert with posthumans and high technology nonsense.

1309
01:07:51,920 --> 01:07:54,600
Speaker 1: It's good, you'll love it. I do so. Check out

1310
01:07:54,720 --> 01:07:56,440
Speaker 1: Jason's book, and it is.

1311
01:07:56,360 --> 01:07:59,080
Speaker 2: About a young woman who inherits a corrupt company. I

1312
01:07:59,280 --> 01:08:01,960
Speaker 2: chose to subject for this podcast on purpose because she

1313
01:08:02,000 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 2: finds herself at the wheel of a corrupted capitalist system

1314
01:08:06,720 --> 01:08:10,080
Speaker 2: and it's like, Okay, how do you fix this? And

1315
01:08:10,120 --> 01:08:12,120
Speaker 2: it turns out not easy.

1316
01:08:13,000 --> 01:08:17,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, there we go. Everybody that has been the episode,

1317
01:08:17,720 --> 01:08:27,799
Speaker 1: so let's all have a happy time. Behind the Bastards

1318
01:08:27,840 --> 01:08:30,479
Speaker 1: is a production of cool Zone Media. For more from

1319
01:08:30,520 --> 01:08:34,400
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia dot com, or

1320
01:08:34,840 --> 01:08:37,720
Speaker 1: check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

1321
01:08:37,720 --> 01:08:39,040
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.