Legal Champion for People and Planet: Melissa Sims, JD

Melissa Sims, JD, Missy to her friends, is an amazing combination of ingenious lawyering and devout intentions. She says she gets her best ideas, like using municipal law to go after major polluters, when she is communing with the Holy Spirit. She has been interviewed by the New York Times, Time100 Climate, The Guardian, and CNN for her work. One thing that may captivate this kind of attention is that not only is she from a small town in downstate Illinois, like me; she has also remained there, even as she reaches out her hand to serve those far from Central Illinois. Now Senior Counsel at Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman, PLLC, her most recent effort is to sue Exxon Mobil and other major oil companies on behalf of Puerto Rico, which was devastated by Hurricane Maria. These companies knew and predicted the horrors their business would cause. Not only did they do nothing; they deliberately obfuscated the truth and sowed climate denial for decades. Another thing Ms. Sims and I have in common is coming from large families – cradle Catholics. Her parents raised her to look for opportunities to serve others every day of her life. Every night, when her mother was tucking her in, she would ask – almost in an accusatory way – “What did you do to help other people today?” As she endured unimaginable drama and grief later in life, she learned that she is tougher than she looks, tougher than even she had thought. What an outstanding champion for people and planet!

Figure 1: Melissa Sims, JD, Milberg Coleman Bryson Phillips Grossman, PLLC

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

JMK: Hello, Ms. Sims. Thank you so much for meeting with me.

MS: Hello! Are you in Lisle? I’m a little bit further south, about an hour and a half.

JMK: I was going to mention – you are from Princeton?

MS: Yes – but originally from Tiskilwa.

JMK: I’m from Canton. You are from Princeton. I go by Princeton all the time.

Thank you so much for taking the interview. You are getting to be quite the star.

MS: I was just in a Yale article.

JMK: I saw that – about the Puerto Rican lawsuit, right? That’s wonderful. And so how is that going?

MS: So we won our motion to dismiss. I don’t know if you saw that.

JMK: I don’t think I saw that detail.

MS: We filed the only racketeering case against the companies, and we filed our case in Federal court. The other lawsuits that were on file are all trying to be in State court. So we're in the Federal court track. Okay?

JMK: Right.

MS: There are two types of lawsuits on file. There are the State court cases. And then there is our racketeering case, based upon Federal law – racketeering and antitrust.

We also filed some State Court counts. Those State Court counts were dismissed under a doctrine called Federal common law displacement, and what that means is that the law of the State does not apply because this emission pollution travels many States.

So you can't apply the law of Illinois or Iowa or Wisconsin; you have to apply Federal common law, and Federal common law is what they call displaced by the Clean Air Act. In other words, that's what the companies are trying to do to the State law cases is, get them all dismissed under this Federal doctrine. That does not apply to the Federal racketeering and anti-trust counts.

And the judge in our Puerto Rico case did not dismiss those counts, so they kept in the racketeering and the antitrust counts. And so there's the Federal magistrate judge, who denied the motion to dismiss. It has been appealed to the Article 3 judge in Puerto Rico, and we're waiting on her decision.

It’s the first time a motion to dismiss was denied in the Federal lawsuit.

JMK: Okay so it was their motion to dismiss.

MS: Yes – it gets to stay alive – it is not dismissed because they are trying to dismiss these cases outright, and they were successful on dismissing the state law counts. I talked about the Federal common law displacement. And when we filed the racketeering and antitrust cases everybody said, “Oh, you're not going to win those.” Well, we won the motion to dismiss, so we proved them wrong.

JMK: You’ve done a lot of that, haven’t you?

MS: Yes – trying to turn things on its head.

JMK: I really think you are such an inspiration.

MS: And I'm sorry for your loss. I read your bio about your – is it your son?

JMK: My daughter – thank you. I appreciate that. I turned my whole life around to address this issue when that happened. I'm just appalled at the injustice. To me it seemed from the beginning, when she was diagnosed in 1998, the biggest untold story and such a huge injustice. And of course, climate change is even worse.

I wanted to ask you, coming from a smaller town in Illinois like me, are you ever conscious on a personal level of the urban-rural divide? It seems like even the coverage has played that up a little. How does that affect your practice?

MS: Nobody in our little town really knows. When I see people at Walmart, they ask, “Oh are you still practicing?” Because I’m not doing divorces and DUIs and stuff like that anymore. In their minds, I’m not practicing law anymore.

JMK: They don’t realize…. I really do believe that the everyday translation of these stories into the popular culture is what is going to change minds. I mean, Erin Brockovich was huge. Dark Waters was a great movie, and it's just inherently David and Goliath.

It is interesting. I also grew up in a big Catholic family – five kids – downstate. I do think people often grow up with good values that way. I grew up with this sense of what is right and wrong, and I just can't believe what the fossil fuel industry is getting away with. I'm modifying the title of my book. It's negotiable with the publisher, of course, but right now I'm thinking, Poisoning Children: How the Petrochemical Industry Has Imperiled Every Life on Earth, because it's not an exaggeration. I can't believe what they have done.

MS: Right? Just look at microplastics.

JMK: Right?

MS: You know, we're in the microplastics litigation. So I represent Baltimore, and that's kind of our test case right now – in cigarette filters and in microplastics. And what we've learned even about microplastics is, it's in the brain, and it's really affecting everybody on Earth.

And that's one of the things that the oil industry has done – their petrochemical side, you know. They get you coming and going, downstream and upstream, right? And so they are creating all this plastic pollution, too. And just look at – I don't know if you've ever seen the pipelines in the country.

JMK: Not up close.

MS: But you have seen the map?

JMK: Yes.

MS: The country is blue and red from the pipelines going all over, and that is not just for crude oil. Very few of them are crude oil. The rest is liquid natural gas, and it’s not to heat our homes. That’s the excuse they use to get permits. But they actually use it to make nurdles for plastics.

JMK: Yes. people don't realize the plastics themselves have a huge carbon footprint, and you know I'm on the Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee (CHPAC) to the EPA, and we are trying so hard to get a plastics letter out. I am getting a close-up view – which is useful for the book, I suppose – of how the industry holds our regulatory system captive. It is just really discouraging.

Figure 2: Pipeline 101: https://pipeline101.org/location/

MS: Then it doesn't matter, really, who's in office.

JMK: To some degree.

MS: They wield that influence regardless of who is in office.

JMK: That is a good way to put it.

On to some of my questions because I know we have just an hour. I wondered if you could tell your story. All you have done is really impressive. Is there something from your childhood or early training that inspired you to pursue this path?

MS: I had the benefits of parents who were both driven to do what’s right. I had a double dose of that. Before we went to bed every night, my mother would say to us, “What did you do to help other people today?” It was almost accusatory. It set us in a sinus rhythm in who you were as a person – to help others every day, and to look for opportunities, not just wait for them to come to you, but to look for those – to be aware of other people's needs and their suffering, and to do what you can to help them out. And so that kind of set a path in all of us children to look for ways every day to help others. And so, as a lawyer, then you have lots of opportunities to help others.

And so I practiced locally as a lawyer in our small town. My boss Bill Wimbiscus was quite elderly even when I started working for him, and I worked for him for fifteen years – until he retired. But he was of the same mindset. And I think Christ is at the center of that because he said to us, help each other. “Love each other as I have loved you,” (John 13:34) right?

And so that great commission that I believe he set into our path is something that my parents saw through, and my boss saw through. So I benefited from these three very influential people in my lives, who saw Christ at the center of that.

JMK: That's wonderful. And it seems like you just were ready for the opportunity.

MS: Oh, I wasn't. I had a lot going on at the time I did this with Exxon, you know. My mother had passed away; she was actually killed by the local Sheriff. If you Google it, you'll see that what happened there. But my mother was a reporter, and she was uncovering things about our local sheriff. The New Yorker did a great article.

I was in the midst of uncovering what had happened, and suing the sheriff for what he did to my mother and working with the other reporters. So I was knee deep in that while I was still practicing law. So I had a lot going on, and at the time this happened with DePue, I was inundated, but I also learned how strong I was. I really was surprised at everything that I was dealing with, and that I kept a cool, level head. I could still maintain all my clients and the cases I've got going on, and dealing with this issue with my mother. I thought, Wow, you're tough. I didn't realize how tough I was really, and it took that to realize how tough I was. And then, when this happened with Exxon, and I was the city attorney for the village of DePue. And do you want me to tell that story, or….

JMK: Yes, please. I have read about it, but….

MS: So I was the assistant city attorney for the village of DePue, but I'm the one who went to all the board meetings, and I'm the one who went to court and things like that. So DePue was the 14th worst environmental disaster in the country. Exxon, CBS, and Viacom made film for the film industry. When everything turned digital in the eighties, they left town because they made film for Paramount Pictures, Kodak, and things like that. And then when everything went digital, they didn't need DePue anymore. So everybody left town, and they left blue mud puddles, and that's why I wear blue – so that you see this is the color of the mud puddles in the village of DePue. This periwinkle blue is from the nickel, the cadmium, and the chromium. We had the highest MS rate in the country in this little tiny town, and it was from this kaleidoscope of colors from heavy metals from making film. And so I took a picture of it.

But so I was at this board meeting in August of 2006. Nothing was being done. We were the 14th worst environmental disaster in the country.. And no one's cleaning it up. And I'm like, why isn’t everybody cleaning this up? Just clean it up.

JMK: Right?

MS: And this is why. There's a loophole in the law, and my life's work has been to get around this loophole. And this loophole – I get choked up about it – but this loophole disproportionately affects poor people. And the reason it disproportionately affects poor people and communities of color is because it is determinative of the value of the property.

So how they clean it up is dependent on the value of the property. Now that is in The Restatement of Torts – this is long ingrained in our law that the value of the property, as a remedy for trespass, which is what a pollution would be – you pick between the value of the property and the cost to clean it up, whichever is lesser.

So why do they pollute in poor communities? Because they don't have to clean it up.

JMK: No.

MS: If they polluted in richer environments with a higher economic status, it would cost them more to clean it up, because the value of the property would then exceed the cost to clean it up.

So that’s why they site these polluting areas in lower economic places. In DePue, it costs far less to clean up. It would have been hundreds of millions of dollars in the city, but the value of property here might be $20,000. Then that is a remedy we can take off the table.

That is everything opposite of what I was taught. Who did Christ say we should help?

JMK: The poor.

MS: Yes. The poor. They don’t even consider the health impacts of the poor. Ultimately, the white people leave, and we have undocumented workers – and obviously, no one cares now about undocumented workers.

JMK: It’s just horrible!

MS: That is who is left in these communities. They have no other resource. So as a city attorney for this little tiny town that is now a Superfund Site with a lot of undocumented workers, and property values that were not high, I’m at a board meeting in August ’06. This was during all this crisis with my mother – all this stuff. The major who has since passed away, Don Bosnich – I’ve known him since I was a little girl –he puts his hand over the mic because we had all these companies blaming each other, doing the blame game as to why it’s not being cleaned up. You have the EPA blaming each other – they left town in the 80s. They turned to me, and he said with his hand over the mic, “Missy, what can we do?” The look on his face was exasperated.

And I said – “we are going to sue them.” And he said, “can we?” I don’t know.

So I went home that night, and I took a run, and that’s where I get alone with the Holy Spirit. There’s a great quote by Pope Leo – I don’t know if you saw it.

JMK: No – but I love him so far.

MS: I love him! And he’s from Illinois! Pope Leo says, “we are not alone in making our decisions in life. The Holy Spirit sustains us and shows us the way to follow, teaching us and reminding us all of what Jesus said.” So whenever I had an issue that I needed help with – I would just get alone. Some people say, is it the Holy Spirit? It’s you. And if you believe in Christ and follow his teachings, the Holy Spirit will come to you when you need help. So I thought, help me help these people. And he said, “fine them.” And I thought, “hmmm….”

I fine people every day for dog poop in their yard, tall weeds, broken windows. Why can’t I fine Exxon, CBS, and Viacom for blue mud puddles in town?

JMK: It’s much worse than poop.

MS: And the people I prosecuted were good people. They just didn’t know the rules. A lot of them didn’t speak English, and so they didn’t know you couldn’t have a goat in town or couldn’t have a chicken. They weren’t hurting anybody.

JMK: I have chickens!

MS: I decided I cannot in good conscience continue to fine the little guys and not take a shot at these big corporations. So I read the entire EPA code front to back, and I didn't see anything in there that says I couldn't do it, because that's how preemption works. Preemption law is, does the Federal Government preempt the state? Does the State preempt the local? So you’ve got to kind of figure it out in the law. What does the statute say? The statute was silent on that, and if the statute is silent on that, then we have an opening; then we have something to play with here. And so this is a state-sponsored cleanup, but it was a Federal Superfund law.

I go to my boss the next day, and I said – let’s fine them for littering for something they did 60 years ago. And he said – why not?

JMK: I love it!

MS: We could fine Exxon, CBS, and Viacom for something they did 60 years ago because there is no statute of limitations in Illinois for municipalities. It’s as if time stands still.

That is what guided me in doing that case – I was compelled to because I couldn’t sit by. I’m not a bully. We were not raised as bullies, as you know being a Cradle Catholic – it’s not so much a religion as a community.

JMK: I agree.

MS: And in our little town, probably like your little town – we helped everybody out, regardless whether they were Catholic or not. If somebody needed a new roof, the whole family went over there and put a new roof on for them. That was what we did. We helped each other out. To me, you are helping out your community. Even though I didn’t live in DePue, it was my community. I knew all those people – played volleyball against them in high school. I ran track against them. I knew the mayor since I was a little girl. They were part of our community. That is what compelled me to help them out and to seek the Holy Spirit to be my guide in doing that.

JMK: Yes. I have to say, this project I am working on is super depressing – except for people like you – and like so many of the researchers and healthcare providers who have been working on this all along – to support and help people. And that part is really inspiriting. I’m doing the big writing this summer, and it’s difficult. I know you also have struggled – to see what happened to Puerto Rico, etc.

I also interviewed Sharon Lavigne – do you know her? She was featured alongside you in Time100 Climate Defenders. https://time.com/collection/time100-climate/

MS: Sorry, no.

JMK: She's someone in Cancer Alley who also feels inspired by the Holy Spirit to fight the oil industry.

It’s inspiring to me that there are people in Illinois. There are people in Louisiana. I'm interviewing people in Alaska, and I feel like your story has caught fire, maybe in part, because it is so inspiring. It makes people feel like, okay, this is the real America, small town America – not the Trumpers who are hateful, but people who help each other.

MS: Right? And you know, I think that it affects everybody. Look at all of the Roundup cases that are going to trial. Look at the breast cancer cases. We're doing ethylene oxide. I don't know if you know about ethylene oxide.

JMK: Sure – I do.

MS: It’s everywhere. Everybody has been affected by it. So you have really nobody who is against you other than the companies.

JMK: Yes. You've already told me many things you have done – but are there one or two things that you're proudest of?

MS: Proud? I mean, we're not supposed to be prideful. [We both laugh.]

That's what got us into trouble with the apple.

I guess just that, looking over everything I've done, even before I would do an environmental practice, I would see the impact that you make on individual people's lives. You don't really realize.

Over the years, the judge would appoint me as a guardian ad litem to represent a kid. And now I've seen some of the effects of that. I had an influence in that child’s life. So it’s not just environmental – when you get to be my age, I have seen and done a lot.

What I am happy with is that I am now able to help more people through Milberg. Going from being a small-town lawyer and having a local influence, now I can help out whole communities I was not privy to before. So if there was a proud moment – it’s that the community for me to help out is larger.

JMK: I love that.

Are you comfortable with being called a badass lawyer? You’ve said you are tough.

MS: Yes, I know that I’m tough. But I don’t know – I am very polite.

JMK: Yes – that’s true. Okay.

MS: I am always congenial and try to befriend everybody. Some people may call me that, but I would like to think I’m pretty nice.

JMK: I’m really glad I asked you that, though, so that I won’t use that as a title or in the book. For myself, because of all the middle-class, white mom stereotypes, when someone once called me that, I was just so flattered.

MS: I’m not aggressive, really. I’m more – when someone gives me a problem, I get alone and think about the problem. I come up with a strategy. But along the way…. For instance, when I was suing Exxon – I got to know the lawyers on the other side very well. We don’t take it personally. And that is part of being a lawyer. We ask, where did you go on vacation? You get to know them personally.

When I was dismissed and took the appeal in DePue – the lawyers on the other side called me up and said – we think we are on terra firma here – firm ground. They were trying to talk me out of the appeal in a nice kind of way because we were friendly.

My way to respond to that is to be friendly back and say, “look – I know you need to make billable hours there at your big firm. What better way to make them than working with me?”

I wasn’t trying to get on my soapbox. If you are going to win, you’re going to win. But at least you get to make your billable hours with me. They laughed.

JMK: That’s a talent. I have a harder time not making it personal.

MS: I’ve been groomed at this stage – I have been a lawyer 30 years now. I think maybe in the beginning, there was some of that. Now, I just don’t take it personally with the lawyers on the other side.

JMK: Because they need to represent their clients. Yes.

MS: Yes. They have their reasons to do what they're doing, and you always extend courtesies for extensions and things like this. I’m really good to work with, I hope.

JMK: I just want to pause and say, shout out to the lawyers and the courts, who are currently the only bulwark to democracy, besides maybe the media, that I see. And that edifice of lawyerly rulebooks and courtesies and things that have been ingrained, and the courts – that is what's holding the country together right now.

MS: Yes – it’s great to see them – exercising their muscles, just trying to navigate the world right now.

JMK: It is so tough. But I think everyone's going to have improved views of lawyers and judges – if we come through this okay.

My next question is about the emotional toll of this. There's a lot of guilt and fear. You see people whose children are sick. Or you see people whose communities are destroyed. And I just wanted to ask if it was difficult for you personally over the years. How do you treat this topic that is essential to preventing these catastrophes but also productive of anxiety, at least potentially.

MS: Me – no. Personally, I sleep at night with no aid.

When I see a wrong, I am compelled to do something about it. But I am not an emotional person. I get emotional talking about the Bible and Jesus Christ. But as far as my job, I don’t get emotionally wrapped up in my job or let it affect my emotional and physical wellbeing.

I learned how tough I was that I could do all of that with my mother. I could deal with it. You just would not believe…. It was just nonstop.

This is a small town. I am suing the sheriff for wrongful death, for killing my mother and uncovering what she was doing at the same time. I was dealing with my dad and all my brothers and sisters. We were in the Chicago Tribune, on the Today Show, all that stuff, in addition to maintaining a law practice. I was cool as a cucumber. I had no idea I was that tough – to an extent cold. I was able to do what needed to be done. There were times when I wondered: am I part robot?

But when I saw what happened in Puerto Rico – I was there and saw it just weeks before and right after Maria – seeing that devastation compelled me to do something. I didn’t know what. I hadn't put it together yet. There was no attribution science at that point in time that linked climate change to hurricanes. But as far as personally, I didn’t let it affect me emotionally.

JMK: Well, thank God.

MS: Yes. I wondered at times, “what’s wrong with you?”

JMK: But your own conscience was always clear.

MS: Yes. And I knew what I needed to get done. But I didn’t wallow – or let it stop me from doing what needed to be done.

JMK: That's wonderful. Okay, the next question I am really looking forward to you addressing because it's policy, which seems to overlap with law. If you could single-handedly recreate U.S. policy regulating environmental chemicals – let's say, petrochemicals – what would the policy look like? And then how do we get there from here?

MS: I am not a politician, and I don’t ever want to be a politician. I sat through enough board meetings to call it my purgatory on Earth. I think that making money has always prevailed, and we have discounted the value of the human life. Those two things are at odds, have been at odds, and always will be at odds.

I think corporate influence in elections is a huge problem. Billions and billions and billions of dollars go into elections from corporations that influence people. That is a problem. With regulation, what I have seen is that it takes so long for something to get approved, like the siting of a factory – that people just don’t have the power to fight corporations or stop a pipeline or stop a factory. Whereas the corporate power can get it done so easily and so quickly.

Take the opioid litigation – when Purdue Pharmaceutical needed to extend the patent hydrocodone – if don’t extend the patent, they lose income as generics take over. So towards the end of their patent, they will reformulate it so they can extend their patent. So when they decided to reformulate their narcotic, they decided to make it impervious to addiction. They put a slow-release coating on it, and that’s how they made oxycontin.

So they did this one study in Puerto Rico. They asked women coming out of gynecological surgery if they felt better after one pill. That was enough to get it approved as impervious to addiction. After that – and I will send you the report – it went like wildfire. If they had studied it more, would we be in the same situation we are with the opioid crisis? No. That corporation was able to just bully and muscle that through. But juxtapose that with us trying to stop something bad for the environment – we’ll be stuck in court 20-30 years. Because corporations have such large influence with politicians and regulators – and people don’t have same sort of influence. People’s health gets lost in the mix. As far as making policy, it seems to me that corporations shouldn’t have that much influence over regulation and politicians.

JMK: It's surprising how unanimous all the people I've interviewed have been about this. I'm up between 40 and 50 interviews of experts and healthcare providers. And it's pretty much the same answer.

MS: Yes.

JMK: So it's so interesting to see that.

My central question is, why does our society let this happen? You've really addressed this to a degree. But do you have anything else to add? We're poisoning our children. We're destroying the only climate that we know supports life in the universe. And there are solutions. But we're not adopting them. Basically, how can we be so stupid as a community, as a corporate body?

MS: I think corporations want to make money bottom line, and people want convenience. So you have those two things that merge into hurting people.

With carbon in the atmosphere, people were not aware because corporations hid that information.

And then in 1998, they all got together for the Victory Memo and said, “Oh, let’s dupe the world into believing that climate change isn’t real when they knew it was. I have family members that will say, “oh, I don’t believe in climate change.” I’m like, “Well, Exxon does.” So they were very successful at duping people into believing that climate change was not real.

I think that corporations want to make money, and they want to make money as cheaply as possible and cut as many corners as possible, and you've got people who want convenience, and that is a toxic mix.

JMK: Well said. Absolutely.

MS: We didn't have Roundup when we were kids, did we? We pulled weeds. If you were bored, Mom would say, “you’re bored? Go out! Pull weeds!” As a kid, I walked beans. Do you remember what walking beans was?

JMK: Yes – I do.

MS: What was walking beans? Pulling weeds! Nowadays we want the convenience of not pulling weeds, so we just spray Roundup.

So corporations want to make money, and people want convenience. And maybe the people don't realize how detrimental the chemicals are.

JMK: Really, it's playing with their own health and the health of their children.

MS: Yes, and when confronted with it, a lot of people wouldn't stop.

JMK: Because the pain to admit that is really just terrible.

MS: People just want to kick the can down the road. Oh, it's not that bad oh, it'll be, okay, you know.

JMK: Yes. My own parents, whose grandchild died of leukemia caused by pesticides, still wanted to use pesticides. I see it up close.

MS: Right? And people want convenience. So yeah, they may disregard the science or put their head in the sand.

JMK: I'm not sure about the way out of it. I'm so glad that you're working on the law aspect. I mean, I feel like writing a book trying to persuade people not to do this – I don't know. I'm not sure how much good it will do. Whereas you're hitting their pocketbooks.

MS: That's the only way you can make a difference. There's no other way other than hitting them in the pocketbook, and that makes people change.

JMK: Yes, unfortunately.

So, looking ahead, what do you think about the status of children's health or health generally by the year 2050? So basically, which way do you see this going?

MS: I don't have any children, so …. but I mean you look at obesity. You look at, you know, ultra-processed foods. You look at microplastics. You look at the sedentary lifestyle of children.

Unfortunately, we haven't hit that crossroads yet for people or corporations to make a change or a difference.

JMK: I hope we can. I'm not sure what we'll do if anything. But I suppose we have to continue to do our part?

MS: Yes. Change will have to be drastic – and it will have to be more natural. People are going to have to be more active, with no processed foods. Have you been reading about ultra-processed foods?

JMK: Oh, yes, and I interviewed Laura Schmidt at UCSF. I don't know if you saw that the Program for Reproductive Health and the Environment at UCSF came out with this Center to End Corporate Harm, which I love. They are folding in ultra-processed foods with pesticides and chemicals and climate change – all these harms. I thought that was such a bold title, just even to say, “to end corporate harm.” If you are curious I have some blogs about that.

MS: Yes. Cases about ultra-processed food are really tough because of the intervening factors. You know – the parents are buying the ultra-processed food for the children. So.

JMK: My view is that at least with cigarettes, ultra-processed food, other harms like that, there is some level of choice, whereas in DePue or other contaminated places, those people have no choice.

And so to me, that is the ultimate violation.

MS: And we’re finding with ethylene oxide, they site sterilizers in communities where people don’t realize what they are doing – it’s just some old building, right? It’s not usually in a very industrial part of town – they are more likely to locate in a multifamily district. And so you have a lot of people within three miles who are affected by this chemical. It is a dispersant for bombs – it was actually used with Agent Orange. There is no smell – it is totally silent, and so people are exposed to it and have no idea what is going on.

JMK: There's there are two cases in the Chicago region. One is Willowbrook, and that one was successful. But my informant, Dr. Susan Buchanan at UIC, the PEHSU coordinator for the 5th district of the EPA Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units. So activists succeeded in Willowbrook in 2023. Well, there's an identical facility in Waukegan, but Waukegan did not have as many resources to fight it. Only recently was there progress. So again, exactly what you are saying about environment justice: it’s the people who don’t have the money to fight it who are most affected. It is just terrible.

MS: Yes. And it's because of the property values. Property values really are determinative of who is going to file suit, and if they are going to get the damages.

Now see, with ordinance violations, you are not limited by that.

JMK: It’s so clever. I’m so glad you thought of that.

MS: It wasn’t me. God told me to do it. Just like King Solomon, I asked for the wisdom. I am not taking any credit for it. Solomon could have had anything – and Solomon asked for wisdom. And God gave him wisdom. I’m very, very specific. It is not me.

I read the Bible back and forth every day, and I read it in context. People quote from the Bible here and here. No, no, you have to read it in context from beginning to end, to truly understand what it means. You know, people want to point out sinners, and they're engaged with the sinner. If you are focusing on the sin and not the Savior, you've lost the point of the gospel.

JMK: I read the Bible a couple of times, but it's been a while.

MS: I have it on audible. The bible speaks to me every time in a totally different way. I try to let that be my guide. Like I said, he’s in control. He gave us this world and these lives – we know how it’s going to end. You read the Book of Revelation. We destroy what he gave us.

Because the Earth at the end is like a drunkard on its axis. He gives us this pristine, beautiful gift – and says, it’s yours.

JMK: What really blows my mind is some people who think, “Okay, that's the end. Let's get there.” I think it's our job to be good stewards, and to take care of it as long as we can, and to not rush the process.

MS: Right? We should not rush the process because that is God’s spoken creation. When he spoke in creation, it was not just human creation, but all of creation. We are not supposed to worship the creation; we are supposed to worship the Creator. But we’re supposed to cherish creation and each other. And so that’s the thing. Are we using our modern conveniences – and not pulling weeds like we used to – using pesticides – because we’re too lazy – and laziness is a sin.

JMK: Yes – sloth.

MS: And you look at our society now. You have so much idle time. The Devil does his work in idle time. So are we destroying the Earth for convenience in order to rage-text people and say horrible things online? What have we done with that idle time and those modern conveniences? We should take that time to help each other. I'm hoping that we're using that time for good.

JMK: Well said. I'm using my time for good this summer because I got the opportunity, and I'm going to use it.

Okay, just two more questions. One is, do you have any clients that you think would want to speak with me, who believe their kids are sick because of exposures?

MS: Let me think about it and get back to you.

JMK: Thank you. I feel like people understand stories. And it seems like you understand this as well. You're telling stories about people. That's what maybe can make people care.

The last question is just, do you have any questions about my experience or the project I’m working on?

MS: No, no! I read your bio ahead of time. I think you are trying to open up people's eyes, but you know you can't make people care.

JMK: No – some people don't have that part of them, maybe.

MS: They don't. You can't make people care; only God can do that. Only he can turn a heart of stone into a heart of flesh. Now, what we can do is, we can ask God to turn people's hearts, you know, and 1 John 7 says that if you see a brother or sister in sin – and that is a sin when you don't help each other out – and you ask God give him forgiveness, he will. Your stories will maybe help people who already care. But he can unstop their ears just like he did Pharaoh.

JMK: That's a really good prayer. I'm glad you're praying while you're doing all this.

MS: Because part of reading the Bible is knowing the word. And you know, whenever I hear somebody say, “Oh, that person's a sinner!” Whatever. Did you pray for them?

JMK: You have more charity in your heart for the bad guys than I do right now. But good for you. That’s wonderful. And I really appreciate so much….

MS: Hey – no problem. And I will get back to you if I have any individual people to talk with you.

JMK: Thank you for all you're doing. And have a great day!

MS: Bye!