Sterlite raises 1.5 Billion

Google News Alert for: asarco

Sterlite gets its US$1.5 billion in a day after US ADS offering Mineweb - London,England,UK India's Sterlite Industries is not only gaining a following among US Asarco creditors, as US investors and Asian investors, as well as parent Vedanta, ...

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" Vedanta's stake in Sterlite [is] 61.7%....Vedanta Chairman Anil Agarwal said the ADS issue is the first in a series of actions that would soon include acquisition of mining assets in Africa and Central America....India's Economic Times reported that a fourth of the ADS book was purchased by hedge fund investors with about 85 percent of demand coming from the U.S. and Asia."

Groundwater Arsenic at Asarco El Paso TX

To:  Mr. Sher
       Lorinda Gardner
cc:   SPGEG, GTLO, ACORN, Sierra Club
sb:   Arsenic in groundwater question

The TCEQ Asarco remediation website says that "...Currently, the highest concentration of arsenic in the groundwater occurs in onsite well EP-49 with a concentration of 62.5 mg/L, which is above the MCL for arsenic. This well is located on the east side of Paisano Drive. The area of contaminated groundwater is shown in Figure 2."

• I am confused why Well EP-49 is mentioned having a top concentration of 62.5 mg/L  but leaves out that  "above the MCL" is actually "6,200 times above the MCL.g "  (see: "The groundwater at the facility has arsenic, lead, and cadmium concentrations above the maximum contaminant level (MCL). ......The most prevalent COC in the groundwater is arsenic. Currently, the highest concentration of arsenic in the groundwater occurs in onsite well EP-49 with a concentration of 62.5 mg/L, which is approximately 6,200 times the MCL for arsenic. The area of contaminated groundwater is shown in Figure 5."

http://www.tceq.state.tx.us/assets/public/remediation/variousremediationsites/sher_asarco_expert_report.pdf"

Would you add those words to that webpage? (i.e. "6,200 times")

• Also, I am concerned that this Well EP-49 is being reported as having the max groundwater arsenic level when another map shows a well with 332.8571 mg/L level (see attached, and the figure at the bottom of this email.)  Why the discrepancy?
• In addition, we know that in a "May 14, 1999 sampling event, Asarco reported a concentration of 0.302 ppm for arsenic in the groundwater. The previous sampling event (February 25,1999) from the same well reported a concentration of 320 ppm for arsenic in the groundwater.  #EPRI-9905-118. On further review, well EP-49 has a sample identification.   Finding that sample identification in the lab sheets appendix, the lab reported a concentration of 302 ppm for arsenic in the groundwater. Please correct the table and incorporate a procedure to include well identification numbers corresponding to submitted plats on lab reports." (see attached 20011002 response)
  

This refers to the same well that you say has a max arsenic level of 62.5 mg/L -- yet the 2/25/99 sampling event for that well showed 302 ppm.

Would you explain this, please?

Thank you,

Obama Nominee Moreno to DOJ environ. division defended General Electric and polluters (?!?)

"The Obama administration's nomination of Ignacia Moreno to head the environment division of the Department of Justice... as environmental counsel for General Electric -- has raised eyebrows among Environmental Protection Agency attorneys. Before Moreno worked for GE, she spent five years defending other companies in pollution-related lawsuits....Six EPA attorneys interviewed by ProPublica criticized the nomination, but asked that their names not be used in this story because they fear retribution. They said they doubt that anyone who has recently defended GE would be effective in the role...."

 

http://www.propublica.org/article/epa-attorneys-criticize-obama-nominee-706

 

 

 

The EPA said Asarco burned illegal hazardous wastes for years for profit in El Paso

In 1998, the EPA told the Federal Dept. of Justice in a confidential for settlement purposes only document that ASARCO El Paso  had handled and burned secret toxic wastes just to make money, and had done this for years.

Asarco signed the SECRET settlement and "paid millions on the condition that details of its activities would never become public" (Rep. Reyes 2007).

The 1998 document became PUBLIC RECORD in 7/2006 and was released to the NYTIMES for a front page story 10/2006.  Months after that, the principal bond-holder for ASARCO threw 500 Million dollars at the NYTIMES in an effort to gain control of its board.  It failed.   The NYTimes faced financial trouble.  Carlos Slim, richest man in Mexico, bailed out the NYTIMES with a very large loan in 2009.

Asarco Attorney(s) still act as if the confidential for settlement purposes only document is still a secret.  They deny that the secret toxic waste burning happened.  They claim that the GAO report from 2007 proves that it did not happen when actually the GAO report was NOT an investigation of ASARCO but instead looked at military handling of waste across the USA and only one instance at Asarco.

Asarco counts on El Paso not reading the confidential for settlement purposes only document and counts on its clout to keep all mention of it out of the newspapers including your own El Paso Times.

El Paso WAKE UP.

Developing "cross-border" gulf of mexico oil deposits

by Robert Pawlowski - Chevron [who used to own Western Refinery in El Paso TX] Energy Technology Co. and Ricardo Fernandez - Fugro Chance de Mexico

"....One issue not adequately addressed by existing frameworks for US-Mexico cross-border relations is the development of fields that truly straddle the border, or fields whose development has the potential for draining hydrocarbons from one side of the border to the other. In this context, it is interesting to note that the 2001 Trident discovery in US waters is only about 3 mi (4.8 km) north of the border.

The energy security of the United States and Mexico are intertwined. ... For 2009, PEMEX has a record investment budget equal to approximately $19.4 billion (roughly double that of recent years)."

http://offshore-mag.com/offshore/en-us/index/article-display.articles.offshore.volume-69.issue-7.latin-america.offshore-us-mexico.html

WE HAVE BEEN SOLD OUT : Foxconn and Megacon in same industry

http://www.crmz.com/directory/Industry1024C.htm

" Electronic Instr. & Controls"

Federal DOJ document being IGNORED and laws broken as ASARCO toxic land given over to NAFTA concerns

"The court document also revealed that Asarco was authorized to sell 125.9 acres in West El Paso to Megacon LLC for $4.1 million."
http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_12855969

"Megacon, LLC
Incorporated by [??] , Megacon, LLC is located at 4023 Tampa Rd Ste 2400 Oldsmar, FL 34677. Megacon, LLC was incorporated on Thursday, March 27, 2003 in the State of FL and is currently not active. F & L Corp. represents Megacon, LLC as their registered agent.

Source: Public Record data from Florida Department of State - Division of Corporations" http://www.corporationwiki.com/Florida/Oldsmar/megacon-llc-4503844.aspx

However, there is a "MegaCon" http://www.megacon.com/  that makes electronic parts internationally.  Here are just the Asia companies:  GUANGDONG PROVINCE, PRC  Guamgzhou Gaotian Hign Tech Development Industries Company Limited, PAKISTAN ZEB TRADERS, SINGAPORE Pan-Amp Control Pte Ltd, INDONESIA PT Panamptara Kontrol, MALAYSIA Pan-Amp Controls Sdn Bhd, KOREA Dongnam Engineering, TAIWAN LUNG-TEH SHIPBUILDING CO. LTD

news- Feinstein Says Law May Have Been Broken

"July 13, 2009
By MARIA NEWMAN

Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, said on Sunday that the Bush administration may have broken
the law if the Central Intelligence Agency concealed a covert spy
program from Congress.

The New York Times reported on Sunday that the agency's current
director, Leon E. Panetta, had told the Senate and House intelligence
committees that the C.I.A. withheld the information about a secret
counterterrorism program on direct orders from then Vice President Dick
Cheney."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/13/us/politics/13cheney.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

Google Alert - PEMEX Natural Gas

Mexico's Pemex To Take Bids On Corindon Gas Block In Sep: WSJ ...
By oswaldoacosta
MEXICO CITY (Dow Jones)–State-run Petroleos Mexicanos will receive bids in September for the Coridon natural gas project in northern Mexico, marking Pemex's latest effort to pay outside oil companies to increase gas production. ...

we pledge to make common cause with the people of the world to bring about justice...

Click for Video

"the pledge to resist:
we believe that as people living in the united states it is our responsibility to resist the injustices done by our government in our names.

not in our name will you wage endless war.
there can be no more deaths.
no more transfusions of blood for oil.

not in our name will you invade countries, bomb civilians, kill more children, letting history take its course over the graves of the nameless.

not in our name will you erode the very freedoms you have claimed to fight for.

not by our hands will we supply weapons and funding for the annihilation of families on foreign soil.

not by our mouths will we let fear silence us.

not by our hearts will we allow whole peoples or countries to be deemed evil.

not by our will and not in our name.

we pledge resistance.
we pledge alliance with those who have come under attack for voicing opposition to the war or for their religion or ethnicity.

we pledge to make common cause with the people of the world to bring about justice, freedom and peace.

another world is possible and we pledge to make it real."

Johnny Cash - God's Gonna Cut You Down

Play Video

"Well you may throw your rock and hide your hand
Workin' in the dark against your fellow man
But as sure as God made black and white
What's down in the dark will be brought to the light

You can run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Run on for a long time
Sooner or later God'll cut you down
Sooner or later God'll cut you down"

http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnnycash/godsgonnacutyoudown.html

Asarco bidding war (was there ever one?) may be over...

Google News Alert for: asarco

Sterlite not to raise Asarco bid further Business Standard - Mumbai,Maharashtra,India The bidding war for Asarco, the US-based copper miner, may be over with Sterlite Industries contemplating not to increase its offer price further and ... See all stories on this topic

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"Sterlite is bidding for the assets while Group Mexico is bidding for the company, including its entire liability...There has also been a third bidder in the race. New York-based private equity (PE) fund Harbinger Capital Partners had submitted its bid of $500 million in cash and consumption of certain liabilities in May. The PE fund is a key Asarco bond holder but has not revised its offer. It is not expected to have much support from the creditors."

July 11, 2009 Labor News International Unions Escalate Mexico Solidarity

"On a five-day visit to Mexico this week, a delegation of several dozen labor leaders representing millions of workers from the US, Canada, Europe, South Africa, Australia, and South America renewed their backing of Mexican colleagues locked in conflicts with the federal government and the big transnational corporation Grupo Mexico...... ...Pro-Gomez union forces have charged that dissidents are manipulated by Grupo Mexico and anti-labor elements of the federal government....Accompanying the foreign visitors, Mexican senator and longtime human rights  activist Rosario Ibarra charged that almost 100 oil industry workers have “disappeared” since the advent of the Calderon presidency in 2006, because of labor disputes.

Sources: La Jornada, July 9, 10, 11, 2009. Articles by Patricia Munoz Rios
and Carolina Gomez Mena. International Federation of Chemical, Energy,
Mine and General Workers Unions, July 8 and 10, 2009. Press releases.

Frontera NorteSur (FNS): on-line, U.S.-Mexico border news
Center for Latin American and Border Studies
New Mexico State University Las Cruces, New Mexico
For a free electronic subscription email
fnsnews@nmsu.edu"

Ex-DOJ Official Lied to Senate Committee, Broke Federal Laws

"Written by Jason Leopold Tuesday, 13 January 2009 12:26
A scathing report issued Tuesday by the Department of Justice's
inspector general found that a former top official in the agency's civil
rights division lied to a Senate committee and broke federal law by
using a political litmus test to hire and fire employees--a violation of
the very laws he was charged with upholding."
http://www.pubrecord.org/law/618-ex-doj-official-lied-to-senate-committee-broke-federal-laws.html

Dallas News: EPA echoes activists in challenging Texas' air pollution permits ...

Google Blogs Alert for: asarco

EPA echoes activists in challenging Texas' air pollution permits ... By Senator Eliot Shapleigh The EPA retains approval authority over state programs and can formally object to a state-issued permit, as it threatened to do in the case of Asarco's controversial copper smelter in El Paso. That threat came Feb. ...

gambling debts in Bahamas, Las Vegas, Atlantic City

"Foreign investor Mikhail Katamanin, who in May was hit with a $12-million foreclosure lawsuit on his Highland Park mansion, filed a personal bankruptcy petition June 6 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Chicago....  His debts are described as “primarily consumer,” and the list of creditors includes Atlantis at Paradise Island Resort & Casino in the Bahamas, Caesars Palace Las Vegas Hotel & Casino and Trump Taj Mahal Casino Hotel in Atlantic City. Chicago lawyer Kori Bazanos, who represents Mr. Katamanin, declined to comment. Related story: Lender asserts claim on lakefront mansion"

http://www.chicagorealestatedaily.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=34626

"A Caribbean investment company has sued to collect on a $12-million loan ...the property is held in trust by Swiss company Asarco A.G., which Mr. Mikhail [Katamanin] controls, according to the complaint and public records....lawyer Irving Drobny, who represents Asarco, is out of the country until next week, according to employees at his office....The claim also is to be arbitrated in Switzerland, according to the complaint."
http://www.chicagorealestatedaily.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=34626

Irving Drobny is the same name as an attorney representing the imperial family of Vietnam.  A Chicago Attorney by that same name also serves as legal council for a Dallas Texas firm, "Transpacific Group" or TPEG. [" TPEG, headquarter in Dallas- Texas, with auxiliary office in HCMC, Vietnam, has played a very important role of great and effective business link and supports to enterprises and entrepreneurs in both sides of the Pacific." http://www.tpeginc.com/aboutus.html

PLAIN AND SIMPLE WAS ILLEGAL TREATMENT AND DISPOSAL OF HAZARDOUS WASTE

About Asarco's "clarification"  published in EP Times Tuesday July 7, 2009 (1B):   Rep. Reye's comments about that same GAO report said it all: "Asarco was able to hide its activities from El Pasoans...Asarco paid out millions of dollars on the condition that details of its activities would not be released to the public" (Reyes official statement Nov 13, 2007). 

Asarco still wants us to believe it didn't happen.  But in 2006 the Federal Government broke eight years of silence and gave me a formerly confidential-for-settlement-purposes-only EPA-DOJ Asarco document (NYTimes 10/06).  The EPA told the Federal Dept. of Justice, "THIS ACTIVITY PLAIN AND SIMPLE, WAS ILLEGAL TREATMENT and DISPOSAL OF HAZARDOUS WASTE." and that "IT APPEARS THAT ASARCO BENEFITED SUBSTANTIALLY" (google "secret asarco document" on the internet).  

Asarco signed the consent decree on conditions that details of what they had done would never become public.  The secret is out.  God only knows what poisons rained down on Cd. Juarez and the communities of Sunland Park and El Paso from those years of illegal activity.

Asarco's "clarification" is all about closure and not about disclosure.

The East Liverpool OH Toxic Waste Incinerator was not allowed to handle the stuff that was secretly sent to Asarco El Paso for burning --

[The East Liverpool OH Toxic Waste Incinerator was not allowed to handle the stuff that was secretly sent to Asarco El Paso for burning -- the stuff sent to El Paso had to be very very bad.  Why won't our Environmental Agencies disclose what chemicals are left in our Paso del Norte Environment from those years of secret waste burning at Asarco?]

"NEWS RELEASE
For Release:November 20, 1998

Media Contact: Jim Leach (614) 644-2160
Citizen Contact: Patrick Gallaway (614) 644-2160

Ohio EPA to Answer Questions, Hear Comments on Modified Permit for WTI

Ohio EPA will hold an information session and public hearing on Monday, December 14, 1998, in East Liverpool, regarding hazardous waste permit changes requested by Waste Technologies Industries (WTI) [East Liverpool OH Toxic Waste Incinerator], 1250 St. George Street, East Liverpool, Columbiana County.

The December 14 meeting will be held at East Liverpool Middle School, 810 West 8th St., East Liverpool.

Ohio EPA issued a draft modified permit to WTI on November 13, 1998. If the modified permit becomes final, it would authorize WTI to accept, store and treat lab pack wastes. A "lab pack" is a package of one or more small jars, bottles or cans containing chemicals generated by laboratories, research facilities and other commercial and industrial activities. WTI would only be authorized to accept lab packs containing wastes it is already permitted to accept. Wastes not authorized for acceptance at WTI include:

• shock-sensitive materials;
• chemical munitions controlled by the Department of Defense or residue derived from such munitions[this is the kind of stuff sent to El Paso's Asarco smelter];
• explosives in quanitities greater than two pounds per outer container or primary explosives;
• asbestos, dioxins, mustard gases, compressed gases, PCBs greater than 50 parts per million, war gases, radioactive waste or infectious waste;
• certain flammable wastes; and
• waste streams with concentrations of bromoform, Freon 11 or Freon 12 greater than 500 parts per million each.

At the information session, Ohio EPA will answer questions about WTI's proposed changes and the hazardous waste permitting process. The hearing will follow the information session and will give the public the opportunity to comment on the proposed permit modification for the record. The meeting will start at 7 p.m.

Comments may be sent through January 6, 1999, to: Ohio EPA, Attn: Thomas E. Crepeau, Division of Hazardous Waste Management, P.O. Box 1049, Columbus, Ohio, 43216-1049. All comments will be considered before a final decision is made.

The draft permit and related materials may be reviewed at Carnegie Public Library, 219 East 4th Street, East Liverpool. Materials also can be reviewed at Ohio EPA's Northeast District Office, 2110 E. Aurora Rd., Twinsburg, by first calling (330) 963-1200 to make an appointment."

Was there a secret EPA DOJ "confidential-for-settlement-purposes-only document" for Libby Montana's Grace & Co?

W.R. Grace Bankruptcy Judge Says OK to $250M Libby Settlement

Santa Teresa/San Jeronimo International NAFTA City...

From http://www.siteselection.com/issues/2008/nov/Site-Visit/
November 2008:

"What does it say about border relations when one of the first cheerleaders for Hon Hai Precision Industry/Foxconn's new 9,350-worker plant in San Jeronimo, Chihuahua, Mexico, is the governor of New Mexico? 'This is one of many mutually beneficial projects that I and my economic development people have worked with Chihuahua officials to carry out,' said Gov. Bill Richardson in July. 'This is the kind of economic development that is going to bring the New Mexico-Mexico border to the forefront of international trade and development.'  "

http://www.siteselection.com/issues/2008/nov/Site-Visit/images/Hi-Res-Map.jpg