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"THE ONLY THING NECESSARY FOR THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL IS FOR GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING"
--Burke

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Authorities still snowballing Radioactive Isotope testing at El Paso TX, at the ASARCO industrial site

The Asarco El Paso site is being demolished as this is being written, and nothing is being done to list the actinides and radioactive isotopes that Asarco left there from its nearly ten (or more) years of secret hazardous waste incineration.   The El Paso Clean up Trustee wrote (email):

 "Asarco ...handled a wide variety materials including radioactive materials Given the scrutiny [not!] of the site from both state and federal authorities, we do not expect man-made radioisotopes, TENORM [technologically enhanced naturally-occurring radioactive material], byproducts or residues at levels above their respective natural levels.
There is no "scrutiny" of the site for radioactive isotopes!!  The Trustee and the Environmental Agencies refuse to test for these -- they are assuming that the levels were and are safe without producing the SCIENCE.  Ask them - they cannot produce *any* data to show the names of the radioactive isotopes present and their amounts.

Yet another "settlement" potentially related to Asarco activity (this time in Omaha NE)...

UP Settles Omaha Lead Dispute With EPA for $25M
OMAHA, Neb. June 2, 2011 (AP)
Union Pacific and the [Federal EPA] ... are ending their decade-long dispute over lead contamination in Omaha with a settlement that reduces the railroad's share of the cost to $25 million...The EPA blamed industrial sources of lead [i.e. ASARCO smelter, which closed 1997 - one year before the 1998 DOJ EPA Asarco confidential for settlement purposes only document secretly-detailing how ASARCO ran an illegal hazardous waste incineration operation in Corpus Christi, TX; East Helena MT and El Paso TX for nearly ten years] and Union Pacific argued lead house paint is the real problem. Last fall, Asarco tried to intervene in a federal lawsuit Union Pacific had filed against the EPA after the railroad learned that agency officials may have deleted some records related to the lead-contaminated properties in Omaha.... Asarco [wants to] recover compensation from companies that contributed to the contamination.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=13737687

Was this another secret Federal Department of Justice "settlement decree" like DOJ-Horizon Shipping Lines etc.?  Meanwhile neither ASARCO, the Federal DOJ, or the EPA are disclosing the details of what Asarco had done when it illegally disposed of hazardous wastes for nearly ten years.  Technology has been around for over 30 years that can determine exactly what metals are there, and where they came from.


Remember also that Grupo Mexico now owns ASARCO and wants to run a railroad line from Northern Mexico up through Santa Teresa N.M. border crossing, where U.P. Railroad and BNSF are building facilities (recent Sunland Park NM water treatment plant changes are said to accomodate the new UP facility).