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.
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