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.

Total absence of any written replies from EPA, TCEQ or the TRUST. It is becoming extremely obvious that EPA and the TRUST are afraid to comment on Asarco and two other of the companies caught (see 10/2006 front page NYTimes story ) sending waste sludges and incinerator ash here throughout the 1990's -- that they were US DOE high level radioactive waste disposal contractors; or to comment that EPA reported just before Asarco El Paso idled that we had the highest beta radiation levels in the USA; and that attic dust metals reports show hafnium levels to be higher closer to the plant (a chemical found mostly in nuclear control rods). Why are they so afraid to write ANYTHING back? Because they carry liabilities, especially since releasing the soot from two stacks into a massive cloud that flowed over children and two countries. Just one good dust wipe of that soot , well documented/confirmed, would contain the physical evidence to win billions for residents of El Paso, possibly. For 8 years our agencies have denied us that sample.