El Paso Inc. Feb. 11 2007 letter to the Editor profiling the repair of the buckled-panel at the old upper american canal across from the Asarco smelter ore handling site
Dear Mr. Fenton,
Thank you for the article and photo about the repair of the old upper
American canal's broken panel, showing the Jobe Concrete truck pouring
cement for the new panel, near the American Dam (established by
International Treaty for the delivery of waters to Mexico and the USA).
http://www.elpasoinc.com/showArticle.asp?articleId=971
We know from the IBWC's reports that 24 million dollars worth of
hazardous waste is in the soil beneath those panels right there. Some
of it is odorless and tasteless. We know from the EPWU's water reports
above and below that buckled-panel that it is leaking into that water
still flowing past the feet of those men, who are now exposed to it.
Those men are not wearing masks, most are not wearing gloves -- no one
is wearing white environmental suits. Some of those men will wash their
clothes at home or in commercial laundromats, and family members (maybe
pregnant wives or growing kids) will handle the contaminated clothing.
We know that between mid-March and mid-October that El Paso will get its
drinking water from this canal; and, that contamination still leaks
through the old-joints and the weep-holes into the canal where
ground-water touches the liner. The contamination will pass along over
70 miles of agricultural irrigation canal. The farmland below Asarco
has been called an "arsenic time-bomb" in at least one research paper.
Our community knows that Asarco burned illegal hazardous waste for
nearly a decade just a stone's throw away from this liner.
Smeltertown, in the background of this photo on the EP Inc., had 18
inches of soil removed nearly 40 years ago, for just the Pb (lead)
content alone.
The panels in that old canal were made over 70 years ago of 3 inches of
concrete laid over re-bar, just like in that photo - and layered in two
directions. They should be made of 4 inches of reinforced concrete.
This is a patch-job it appears, and the rest of the 3 miles and 400 or
so panels are still in danger of failing. The panels' failure was
predicted years ago.
The State Department in spring of '05 reviewed the various IBWC sites
and said that the employees at American Dam next to old-smeltertown were
sick, and that they were not getting independent medical review from
this region.
How long will our regulatory agencies responsible for our well-being
continue to conceal its conflicts of interests from this community and
pass along the responsibilities to the next generation---
"pass-the-buck", in cancers, lead exposure, arsenic trioxides and
actinide exposures?
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
[91 year old] former ASARCO worker sees no harm
This author would have been 74 years old when the EPA tells us that ASARCO El Paso installed the two world's-largest ConTop furnaces and secretly incinerated unmanifested military and industrial wastes here, just for profit. It is likely that Mr. Sida was not working at the site when this waste burning began, and thus spared the worst.
"El Paso Times Staff Posted: 09/01/2009 12:00:00 AM MDT --- Former worker sees no Asarco harm
After reading and hearing so much about Asarco, and how it supposedly has caused severe medical conditions for some individuals, I would like to go on record with a different perspective. I began working at Asarco in 1937, interrupted my career to join the Army during World War II, and upon my return gladly resumed my duties there. With combat experience and all, plus almost 42 years of service to Asarco, I can honestly say I have never had health problems that my doctors or I believe were as a direct or indirect result from my time with Asarco. Indeed, as I hopefully turn 91 in a couple of weeks, I can further state with a great deal of certainty that my long, on-site exposure to Asarco had no impact on my physical or mental state during my tenure with it, or during my retirement.
Benjamin Sida"
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