Harbinger Capital Group, Asarco, and the still-secret wastes illegally burned in El Paso TX and E. Helena MT

“The general unsecured creditors who would be paid in full include bondholders Harbinger Capital Partners Master Fund I Ltd. and government agencies charged with cleaning up pollution at Asarco’s mining sites. They have supported Sterlite’s previous plans The case is In re Asarco LLC, 05-21207, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Texas (Corpus Christi)." http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=ae_7kL3zfSRg

Soon after the NYTimes released the 1998-confidential-for-settlement-purposes-only-document from the EPA to the Federal DOJ about ASARCO in 2006, Harbinger threw 500 million dollars at the NYTimes in an effort to take over its Board of Directors.   Harbinger failed, and lost 75% of that money.    The richest man in Mexico then gave the NYTimes a loan (Carlos Slim).  The people who released that document have suffered non-renewal, firings, eviction and more.

The document details how ASARCO handled and burned unmanifested and secret toxic-wastes for profit for nearly a decade in the 1990's.   Rep. Reyes (Chair of the House Intelligence Committee) later commented that ASARCO had paid millions on the condition that the details of what it had done would NEVER become public. 

Now the secret was out.   But Asarco, the court, the EPA, the DOJ, the TCEQ and the NMED then proceeded to act as if the document was still confidential, and that the illegal incineration of only-god-knows-what never happened.  They proceeded to keep the details from the public.

They are still acting this way.

But the document is PUBLIC, and we know that the EPA told the DOJ that Asarco had burned unmanifested wastes for years, for profit.  

How long do these conflicted officials and Asarco believe that they can continue to keep this "secret" secret?  They sent materials from Rocky Flats Plutonium site to El Paso for disposal, the grapevine to the EPA in CO tells us.   We know that they sent Rocky Mt. arsenal and Tooele UT wastes here.   We also know that the EPA reported that the Beta-Radiation levels in El Paso TX just before ASARCO shut down were the highest in the United States of America.  Just three months before that, the Texas Environmental Quality group suddenly decided to 'throw in the towel' and not establish a nuclear dump 100 miles from El Paso TX at Sierra Blanca Texas...  what were they afraid of?  Media/press attention to local nuclear and radiation issues was international at that time -- and had the media found out that ASARCO had released radiative material through its stacks the community outrage would have been intense.

What on God's earth did they expose us to, here?   Rare cancers appear rampant here - especially those of the brain, the throat and nasal cavity.  Children born to women who lived along the river in the 1990's had horrible teratogenic birth defects.   It is common to know a young mother with a child whose skull is completely fused.  Even the Federal State Dept. in 3/2005 said that Federal Workers next to the Asarco stack at the IBWC American dam site were sick, it was not their imagination and that they could not get independent medical review in the entire region.

The International La Paz Accord Joint Advisory Committee agreed in a resolution a year ago that chemical-background testing needs done.  Nothing has happened despite this group being chaired by the EPA.

Meanwhile we live next to the smelter, we remain sick, and after five years of research we are no closer to the facts and the truth of what dioxin, pcb, polonium, mercury and metals-isotopes are out there around the site than we were before.  The TCEQ and ASARCO recently *refused* to share split-samples with a long-standing and respected community group.

It is appalling and this Mexican-American Community deserves better.  When will our nation's top officials take honest action to help this community and to ensure honest oversight of the Asarco bankruptcy through its DOJ trustee??

Fraudulent concealment of the unmanifested toxic-wastes burned by ASARCO continues....

The bids roll in, and the bankruptcy court, the EPA and the DOJ continue to ignore the now-public EPA-DOJ Asarco confidential-for-settlement-purposes-only document (1998) that a DOJ Attorney released to the public in 2006:

Why is this allowed to happen in our Bankruptcy Court?  Why can't the new DOJ Administration do something about this?   The secret unmanifested toxic-wastes from both military and industrial sources burned by Asarco in El Paso TX and E. Helena MT for nearly ten years IS STILL BEING IGNORED by the bankruptcy proceedings.  

As Rep. Reyes said, ASARCO paid MILLIONS on the condition that details of what it had done would never become public.  Apparently the DOJ, the EPA and Asarco all want to pretend that someone honest in the DOJ never made that confidential-for-settlement-purposes-only document PUBLIC.

The Bankruptcy court is NOT considering the liabilities to Asarco from the years Asarco burned secret military wastes for profit.  And the EPA is not testing for the poisons that would remain here from those illegal activities.

But the bids for Asarco heat-up as the Bankruptcy winds to a close, and the bottom-line of Asarco is being "cleaned up".

Carlye Group owns 20% of Grupo Mexico (who controls Ferromex/UP railroad that will put a new international line through the port of entry just next door to the old ASARCO stacks) and Carlye owns CSX railroad along the USA 300-mile wide eastern seaboard.   Top executive(s) for the founder of Verde group now run Carlyle USA realty group.

What is coming down, here? 

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Sterlite Matches Grupo Mexico Offer on Asarco Debts Bloomberg Under the plan, Sterlite would guarantee to pay unsecured debts of Asarco LLC that are ultimately considered legitimate by US Bankruptcy Judge Richard ... See all stories on this topic