Analyze

The environmental legacies left behind by industrial production are pervasive in the air, the soil, and the water. This elemental elixer surrounds us.

In the field of STS, it is perhaps obvious to suggest that institutions have cultures, norms, standards, and professional ways of being. Yet, what are we to make of the results of industry telling its own past publically. The corporate origin story could be a footnote in Joseph's Campbells work. The allure of the lone individual working tirelessly until an innovation is produced and the market takes over. 

Yet, the Wood River Refinery tells a different story. One about place, about people, about the terrible minutia of life lived within bureaucracy. Yes, the story told is glossy and teleological, but the question emerges. What can be learned about the stories industry tells about itself? What do these artifacts contribute to histories and what weight do we give to these stories within the Anthropocene?

The factory at Wood River is both a place where labor is maximized for profit, but also where worker devote 40 precious hours of their week. Lives persist and even thrive in the factory. Are the stories of these lives at Wood River? 

The question of data relates to Denise Brock’s key role in the passage of the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA). Brock independently collected thousands of documents related to the health of  workers in nuclear facilities like Weldon Spring in her efforts to show that they had been exposed to pathological levels of radiation. In many cases, their employers were fully aware of the dangers these workers faced, but kept this information to themselves or hidden away in the private documents that Denise uncovered decades later. Prior to Denise's work this information was not publically available, and if workers who had become ill wanted to receive compensation for worksite expose, they would have to undergo exposure reconstruction assessments, which--due to the lack of accurate and available data--were imperfect evaluations of the actual levels of radiation workers had been exposed to. Due to Denise's advocacy, which led to the passage of the EEOICPA, workers at nuclear facilities are exempted from the exposure reconstruction assessments and are eligible for compensation payments up to a maximum amount of $250,000, plus medical expenses for accepted conditions.

Denise's experience raises a few questions and reflections on data in the Anthropocene:

•  Issues like worksite and environmental exposure are often plagued by invisibilities and what STS scholars have referred to as "agnotologies"--where can activists/scholars/any interested party gain access to relevant data in relation to these issues (in a similar fashion to Denise's work)?
• For historians in particular: do the thousands of documents Denise complied consitute an archive? How can these and similar archival practices be Anthropocenic strategies? 

Rikers is not safe for inmates due to a varitey of factors, for example, the CO2 emissions, the extreme heat, flooding, the emissions from the landfill, the narrow road that doesn't always allow ambulances to pass. The stench is also disgusting. There are arguments for the closing of the jail and improvemements to how money is spent within society, as well as "efforts" to improve the condition of the jails.

Interviews were conducted with inmates and politicians.

NYC Dept of Correction,

Legal Aid Society,

Susi Vassallo - monitored temperatures on Rikers Island,

Rikers,

Hailey-Means, Freddie McGrier (both inmates)

The health of the inmates is in serious jeopardy and there was in instance in which an ambulance was unable to get to the island, which resulted in a death. There are also a lot of suicide attempts so that should be a warning to someone.

"'Sometimes [the detainees] tell [the guards], 'we not locking in becuase its too hot,' Jackson says. Such refusal has often meant calling in the Emergency Services Unit, the jail version of a riot squad. REferred to as 'the turtles' by some detainees, the ESU is known to use extreme force when bringing people back to their cells"

Researchers used personal anecdotes of two individuals who, were locked up in Rikers in order to provided a personal view of the conditions of the facilities. The other data was collected from multiple agency's and law firms that have gather data to make a case for either the closing or improvement of Rikers.  

The main point of this article is to point out the flaws in the capabilities and living areas provided by Rikers island correctional facility. The article is discussing the flaws behind the current standards set at Rikers, and how the facilities downfall are placing the health of the inmates at risk for basically everything up to death. They talk about many of the issues that face individuals including flooding, water outages, and even unintentional extended stays because of unusually high jail bail. They discuss the reforms and possible closeature of the facilities, and how it would affect the population.

This article discusses the health and living inequalities faced by individuals housed in Rikers correctional facilities. It discusses that when individuals are housed there they live in subpar conditions with very little representation in legislature. The infrastructure is crumbling and residences prone to flooding. It also touches on the life lived by post-incarceration individiuals. The end tells of the hardships faced by those because it leaves them without a steady home, very little financial assistance, and a sense of self destruction.