Smelter Cemetery 2007

Smelter Cemetery 2007

Smelter Cartoon

Texas Sayings...

during the toxic-waste burning years, the EPA said that the smelter made a LOT of money burning the illegal untracked waste.  It was "Ridin' the gravy train with biscuit wheels"

and now I think that the piles of black slag look like... "Hind legs of destruction"

Company convicted by D.O.J. in 1990 for Superfund toxic cleanup fraud becomes contractor to test Asarco El Paso waste streams....

In 1995, Hudock (EPA) provided the services of the contractor, SAIC, to TCEQ for sampling Asarco El Paso's waste streams, soils, and monitoring-wells, because of TCEQ's "limited Jurisdiction and Resources".

Citizens for Legitimate Government (CLG) has learned that so-called DC Madam, Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 'confirms for the first time that another individual with very high government security clearance -- Ronald Roughead of SAIC -- was also a customer.' (9/07)

see this link for the following:
http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showPerson.php?id=5624&name=Science-Applications-International-Corporation-(SAIC)

"In 1990 SAIC was indicted by the Justice Department on 10 felony counts for fraud in its management of a Superfund toxic cleanup site. (SAIC pleaded guilty.) “In 1993 the Justice Department sued SAIC, accusing it of civil fraud on an F15 fighter contract.

I was an Asarco Hostage

I Was an Asarco Hostage
Newspaper Tree - El Paso,TX,USA
"I was an Asarco hostage. Really. The day started out normal enough. After polluting our community for over a century, leaving a multi-million lead ..."

Summer's account of what happened to her is terrific, and everyone should read it!

1993: "You can't sweep your mess under the rug, and we felt that is what they (ASARCO) were trying to do,"

March 13, 1993
Page: 1A Howard Pankratz; Denver Post Legal Affairs Writer DENVER POST

A Denver jury yesterday found that ASARCO Inc. negligently permitted cadmium and arsenic to spread from its Globeville smelter and refinery, and it awarded hundreds of families in the north Denver neighborhood millions of dollars in damages.

"You can't sweep your mess under the rug, and we felt that is what they (ASARCO) were trying to do," said Mark Emmons, one of the jurors who returned two different multimillion-dollar verdicts on behalf of 567 Globeville families. ASARCO attorneys said the company will appeal.


....Pamela Aylsworth, the jury forewoman, said the jurors felt that for decades ASARCO had inadequately controlled dust and other emissions from the plant, .....During the 5-week trial, lawyers Macon Cowles and Kevin Hannon claimed that hundreds of thousands of pounds of dust blowing from the plant had scattered cadmium and arsenic throughout Globeville. Those metals, they claimed, left residents at higher risk for cancer and other illnesses.

"ASARCO thinks that a home's worth is measured only in square feet and has nothing to do with raising babies and growing gardens," said Kane. "ASARCO also thinks that health risk is measured by statistics, not individual human beings - mothers, fathers, children. But the people of Globeville know better and, when they could trust promises no more, they turned to the courts for the justice so long overdue."

ASARCO said there was no proof that the metals harmed anyone. [sound familiar?]...... He said by fighting ASARCO he and his neighbors were sending a message to corporations that if they pollute neighborhoods, those neighborhoods won't tolerate it.
http://www.marykanelaw.com/articles/globevilleSmelter.cfm

TENORM radioactive waste in copper mining and waste

V. Enhanced pollution due to technological processing. Waste elements that are put into the waste heaps release toxins into the environment, in an affect called “technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials” (TENORM) by Environmental Protection Agency. In other words, when you bring toxic metals, which are buried in the ground with no potential to harm human health, to the surface, put them in waste dumps exposed to the air, and subject them to various technological processes, there is a potential for adverse affects on human health. This is particularly true in Arizona where there are abundant deposits of radioactive metals and poisonous arsenic. In 1999, Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D. C. published a report on this uranium and radioactive chemicals in the “Copper Belt” of Southern Arizona. Following is an excerpt from that report:

Nearly all rocks, soils, thorium, radium, radioisotopes,naturally occurring radioactive purposefully or inadvertently technologically enhanced naturally as any naturally occurring human exposure has been activities (NAS, 1999). . . .

Levels in excess of the federal MCLs and state guidelines were found in groundwater and surface water samples, as well as soil and sediment samples at abandoned and active copper mines. TENORM exceedences were also found in groundwater at active and inactive copper mines. Uranium byproducts were recovered from heap leach dumps and in-situ operations that feed SX-EW and ion exchange circuits at several copper mines. Radioactivity was discovered in copper mineral processing waste streams. Elevated levels of radioactivity were also found to occur in the process solutions and process wastes.

For entire report, see: www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/tenorm/402-r-99-002.pdf

http://www.savethesantacruzaquifer.info/Superior.htm

May 2007: Los Alamos National Security related-company named as possible buyer for ASARCO AZ copper mines

Contract paves way for mine reopening  May 4, 2007
Washington Group International of Boise, Idaho, has won a $310 million contract to perform mining services at the Pinto Valley Mine near Globe, which is being reopened in response to soaring copper prices. A related company, Washington Corp., has been mentioned as a possible buyer for Asarco LLC's Arizona copper mines, and the Pinto Valley contract gives the organization a foothold in the area. (AZCentral -- Business)

Security lab may face $3.3m fine for data leak  Jul 14, 2007
Los Alamos National Security is made up of Bechtel National Inc., BWX Technologies Inc., and the Washington Group International Inc. as well as the University of California, which had managed the lab on its own since its inception in 1943. 2007 The Associated Press. (MSNBC -- Technology)
http://news.surfwax.com/biz/files/Washington_Group_Internat.html

Quote from Atomic scientist

"If you pollute when you know there is NO safe dose, with respect to causing extra cases of deadly cancers, then you are committing premeditated random murder.”
Dr. John Gofman
September 21, 1918 – August 15, 2007

Air pollution 1985: cost benefit

Arsenic, ASARCO, and EPA: Cost-benefit analysis, public participation, and polluter games in the regulation of hazardous air pollutants.
Call, GD
Ecology Law Quarterly [ECOL. LAW Q.]. Vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 567-617. 1985.

The first part of this comment examines section 112 of the Clean Air Act. The second part discusses the ASARCO smelter as a setting for the regulation of arsenic emissions. The third part examines the first substantive issue, the use of cost-benefit analysis in regulating the emissions of hazardous air pollutants, including the application of cost-benefit analysis to situations where increased emission regulation may lead to plant shutdowns. This part also contrasts standards based on a cost-benefit approach with standards based on a health effects approach. The fourth part examines the role of the public in making decisions regarding hazardous air pollutant emissions. This comment examines public participation through both market and nonmarket mechanisms and then contrasts public participation, in general, with expert decisionmaking. The final part examines the extent to which regulated firms engage in strategic behavior to deceive the regulator and the ability of EPA to prevent such behavior.

Descriptors: {Q1}; Clean Air Act; arsenic; smelting; industrial emissions; pollution control; EPA

Daniel Novick Reports: Asarco Re-Opening Causes Debate - Video - KFOX El Paso

http://www.kfoxtv.com/video/14062922/index.html?taf=elp

FACES AGAINST ASARCO WIDE FORMAT photo event

WHERE WILL YOU STAND? FACES AGAINST ASARCO --

EL PASOANS TAKE A STAND AGAINST ASARCO WITH COMMUNITY PHOTOGRAPH SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 23 AT 6:00 PM

When: Sunday, September 23 at 6 p.m.

Where: Executive Center between I-10 and Paisano Drive, enter from Paisano

Attire : Casual white shirt

Parking: Enter Executive Center from Paisano and look for signs 

For more information, call 544-1990

TCEQ in 2002 : Shameful SHAM recycling requirements put in place, while hiding from EL Paso community that ASARCO had committed gross SHAM RECYCLING

"...Shameful Sham Recycling Requirements?
[from 2002  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0QNZ/is_2002_August_9/ai_n6244533/print]

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) on August 7 [2002] was poised to adopt rules aimed at ridding the state of "sham" recyclers, as mandated by section 9.03 of House Bill 2912 (the agency's Sunset legislation). Even after hearing significant complaints that the rules as drafted were unworkable, they held out hope that some compromise might be found between late morning and mid-afternoon, when a related rules package was also up for adoption.............   - the proposed rules did not require financial assurance to cover cleanup costs for sham recyclers that go out of business....  El Paso Disposal noted the rules contain no provision for financial assurance to cover cleanup costs for a sham recycler and argued, as did others, for creating such a mechanism. Staff disagreed that financial assurance is needed for recycling facilities that meet the standards and operational requirements of the new rules. There was, they added, no legislative intent to regulate a compliant recycler as a solid waste facility. Moreover, other rules and penalties apply to illegitimate recyclers, including civil suits and criminal prosecution of those who dispose or allow or permit the disposal of over 5 lb of solid waste for a commercial purpose at a site that is not an approved solid waste management site....."

Houston Texas Asarco Thorium contaminated site

"September 13, 2006 George FitzGerald, P.G., Project Manager MC-221
Texas Commission on Environmental Quality
PO Box 13087
Austin, TX 78711-3087

Ref: Your letters of June 22 and 23, 2006 re: Comments to ASARCO's
Characterization of Radioactive Materials and Comments to January 19,
2006 Groundwater Sampling Report, Federated Metals State Superfund Site,
Houston, Texas.....

.....The site is presently fenced and gates are locked to prevent intrusion.
The perimeter is placarded to alert potential trespassers to the
presence of contaminated materials.....
http://www.terai.com/Ltr_Robbins_to_TCEQ_9_11_06_with_my_section.doc

Asarco trying to get out of environmental liabilities and leave the costs to you, the taxpayer

"This is only one part of the shenanigans surrounding this situation. The current owner of the dam, Asarco, is also trying to get out of paying for anything by pleading poverty, even though it is owned by a hugely wealthy Mexican multinational corporation. That's the M.O. in today's corporate culture: Pass the buck, and try to make taxpayers foot the bill. davidsirota :: When Polluters Don't Want to Pay..."

Asarco sheds environmental liabilities & oversees its own cleanup (fox watching the chickencoop) and the Labor Union cooperates...

"....The union's support has been reciprocal.  Last week in Hayden, as Asarco argued its position for leading an environmental cleanup there instead of letting the federal government designate it a Superfund site, the union was at the company's side.   United Steelworkers representative Tony Meza told Hayden town officials to let Asarco manage the cleanup...."
from:  Asarco, unions achieve harmony: Turnaround in labor relations credited to bankruptcy court's takeover in 2005

By Gabriela Rico Arizona Daily Star  Tucson, Arizona | Published: 09.03.2007

1994 Asarco authorized to emit Hexavalent Chromium; meanwhile Erin Brockovich in 1993 had begun work against PG&E... the case was settled in 1996

"...Additionally, ASARCO will emit other compounds, which are included in its PM and VOC emissions. In November 1994, an uncontested amendment to Permit No. 20345 was granted by 17 the Commission. The purpose of the amendment was “ to adjust heavy metal emission rates from the original representations to actual rates that were measured during required stack sampling.”18 According to that amendment, the following compounds were authorized to be emitted at various 19 locations and in various amounts:
(from Oct. 27, 2005 SOAH Judges' statement)

"

"Erin Brockovich-Ellis (born Erin L. E. Pattee June 22, 1960 in Lawrence, Kansas) is a legal clerk who, despite the lack of a formal law school education, was instrumental in constructing a case against the $28 billion Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), of California in 1993....The case alleged contamination of drinking water with hexavalent chromium, also known as chromium (VI), in the southern California town of Hinkley. At the center of the case is a facility called the Hinkley Compressor Station, part of a natural gas pipeline connecting to the San Francisco Bay Area and constructed in 1952. The case was settled in 1996 for $333 million, the largest settlement ever paid in a direct action lawsuit in U.S. history." (Wikipedia)

Radioactive waste from old nuclear weapons is being sent to domestic landfill sites across the USA

"Landfill Scam:
Radioactive waste from old nuclear weapons is being sent to domestic landfill sites across the USA, the country's Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS) has revealed.

In a new report, the NIRS traced the legal and technical routes that have allowed the Department of Energy to dump radioactive, plastic and chemical waste into unsuitable landfills.

The authors found that the Department was auctioning waste to 'processors', who are then free to ignore radioactive handling requirements and treat the waste as domestic rubbish".

The Ecologist Mag. pp. 10-11 July/Aug. 07