El Paso Asarco clean-up Trustee Mr. Puga has absolutely refused to split any of the dirt/etc. samples he tests, so how can we believe any of his test results?! It was especially telling when he, the EPA (Charles Fisher) and TCEQ all absolutely refused to let me have a chain of custody (i.e. official) piece of slag from the Ionics Brine Distillation unit after it melted down --- it had been removing radioactive material from the site's process water since the illegal waste burning began. Slag, like what was left from it melting down, is well known as concentrating the bad stuff so it is easier to find when testing. One of our citizens had done full metals analyses through a CA emissions testing company of his 100 year old homes' attic dusts in 2003. One house was about 2 miles from the smelter and the other 3 miles. He never released the data publicly, and during a 2009 TCEQ, EPA US DOJ community meeting he explained how he'd given this data to Asarco to get compensated before/during the bankruptcy and they ignored him. Email from this person indicated it showed hafnium (found in nuclear control rods) was higher nearer the smelter than further away. He asked me to not release this information. After he allowed the public into the house he'd given me data for and they wanted to convert it into a coffee house, I released that full metals analysis; but, this citizen never shared all the test results with me or the community. Had he done so, many children would have been protected. We know know that Asarco, Dupont and Englehard --- all caught by EPA and the US DOJ as sending illegal wastes to be burned here (the EPA still refused to release the invoices listed by ID numbers in the 1998 73 page US DOJ EPA secret document NYTimes 10/2006) were US DOE HIGH LEVEL RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL CONTRACTORS. TO THIS DAY none of them have been held responsible through the bankruptcy court for ANY of the illegal waste disposal damage to our community and its water. But, I was non-renewed and regionally blacklisted from working again after disclosing Asarco's impact to our water. Very Sad when the community was afraid to back me up publicly, and I watched this happen to at least two other people. # of the 5 who handled the process and vote to non-renew me were later caught in criminal conduct including stealing. One (a former policeman) was recently put into federal prison for four years. The community needs to know what actually happened so that the bad people who allowed a lot of this to go on do not continue to have the power they have. But many are extremely powerful and people are still afraid. Some pose as model citizens and you do not dare to challenge that. Dr. Davis (part of a team that won the 2007 Nobel Peace prize) thanked me for my courage, in a handwritten preface to her 2nd book; and, Mexican activist Selfa Chew (senior, Mother of Dr. Mariana Chew who worked for Sierra Club several years before abandoning the job for another to run the sewage treatment plant in Anapra NM), who started the first labor union across from Asarco wrote me a card in 2008 saying , " Gracias por compastir con migo tos Ideales" among other kind words for my work researching Asarco. One of my students wrote me years later, " I'm proud and honored that you were my biology teacher." I continue to thank those who stood by me, support me, and say good words not gossip to others.

ASARCO: dead silence

EPA and the Asarco El Paso Trustee have been totally silent after the ASARCO stacks came down, breaking into pieces releasing clouds of black soot containing radioactive materials. To this day they refuse to disclose how much radioactive Lead (Pb) is at the site, or strontium, and these are COMMON to copper smelters. Now Asarco is suing local El Paso quarry owner Jobe, (who served time in federal prison until Pres. Clinton pardoned him), RMC who bought his quarries for awhile, and Cemex. There is little information in the local papers on this lawsuit.