Samual Egana
The thing that really peeves me is that the average person who says, “Well you know the land is toxic, but you’re still there. Why are you there?” I would love to be someplace else, and it’s easy to say it. Well, which is more important, your health or your living? This is part of my living, so here I am. Where am I gonna move? Where can I afford to move? Where the hell am I going to go? I own this. It is so easily said if you’re not in this situation, “Move!” And that sticks in my mind—that the average person would say, “Move!” It is not as simple as all of that, just to, say, pick up and move. For me personally, I would have been moved if I had known it would cost my wife her life. And it may still cost me my life.
.... Hopefully in another month I’ll be 75 years old, three quarters of a century. I’m ready to get the hell out of here. Maybe it will extend my life a little bit longer, so I just pray that it comes in the near future. I don’t want to be like Moses. He didn’t get into the promised land. I want to be here when the promised land come about.
…I feel in my heart and in my mind that it caused someone close to me not to be here. That’s I guess that’s why I’m extremely bitter. I don’t just want to get out. I’m bitter about not getting out, because I do feel that it cost my wife her life.,,,I’m still here, you know, and I have children. I have grandchildren. Who the hell wants to leave something to their children or grandchildren that you think may cost their lives if they live there.... Why would I want my daughter, my sons, or my grandchildren live on top of a toxic landfill, where I don’t really want to live. But what am I going to do with this, just walk away from it after two hundred something thousand dollars, plus the work that I’ve done in it? It’s not that easy.