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)