Mailing Chicken of the Sea to Washington D.C.

Submitted by Kristian on Thu, 2005-05-26 12:43. Current | Advocacy

Dale Bengston and his family, of Madison, were upset about the health dangers of mercury pollution making its way into the food chain, and hoped to raise the profile of pollutants in fish. Resolving to send a stack of canned tuna to the White House earlier this year, they mailed the Chicken of the Sea to the Bush administration's regulatory policies vis-à-vis mercury emissions.

A couple of weeks ago, Bengston was interviewed about the tuna transmission on the radio show Living on Earth. This is a "weekly environmental news and information program distributed by National Public Radio" based in Boston that has been broadcast for twelve years. It is aired on more than three hundred NPR stations in the U.S., though not anywhere in Wisconsin. This story is reaching Madison webdom via Fearful Symmetries.

Bengston explained the origin of this protest in the interview;

Quote:

Well, we looked at the numbers that the National Resources Defense Council had come up with, analyzing the EPA's data, and found that we really couldn't feed our young daughter tuna fish any more. So we cut it out of our diet completely, which is a shame. Both of my children really enjoyed tuna fish. And my wife got so mad about it she said 'let's send our cans of tuna to the president in protest.' So we did.

He went on to explain how he held his tongue at the post office, when he was asked if the package contained any toxic or hazardous substances (mercury?), and his opinion of the Bush administration's weakened standards on mercury emissions from coal power plants.

Living on Earth was tipped to the family's protest by a letter to the editor Dale Bengston wrote to Salon that was published on April 20. This letter was in response to the April 18 article Mercury Rising, which reported on fetal exposure to mercury in the context of the Bush administration's relaxed emission standards for the heavy metal.

In his letter, Bengston told the story of how he decided he could no longer safely feed tuna to his childre, and the how and whys of mailing Chicken of the Sea to D.C.

Closing the letter, Bengstron suggested that readers follow his lead;

Quote:

I encourage your readers to send their cans of tuna to the president. Perhaps if the front portico of the White House is suddenly clogged with thousands of cans of tuna, President Bush will be sufficiently reminded of who he's really in the White House to serve.

In his interview with Living on Earth, Bengston also spoke about what the White House might have done with their tasty gift, repeating his suggestion.

Quote:

Well, I don't know, I guess they could take it and eat it themselves. If they think it's okay, they're welcome to eat it. My wife, Laura, and I thought that if the corridors of power were clogged with tuna fish then maybe some action might be taken. So we're doing our part and we're encouraging other people to do the same.

White House spokeswoman Dana Piriton was quoted as saying "no one's seen the cans," according to Living on Earth.

Note: Graphic is courtesy Dale Bengston and Living on Earth.

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