Who is arcadis

 Arcadis.com

"Arcadis is the world's leading company delivering sustainable design, engineering, and consultancy solutions for natural and built assets. We are more than 36,000 people, in over 30 countries, dedicated to improving quality of life."

Yeah, right. Using 20 plus year old slag that releases 100% of its contaminants over a 100 years, so it can wash downriver.

This year 2024 the EPWU says 50% of our drinking water will come from the rio grande.

Now who will eventually pay the $$$ to remove the contaminants from the water? Future generations.  You may see a gradual rising (eventually sky high) of your storm water fee, because the contaminants will go there, into stormwater and the river. 

The rich are already putting osmosis filters into their homes. Where do the filters go when full? Our landfills, which then may drain if not careful into our arroyos, to the  river and thus our water.

But we dont have to hold asarco responsible, right? EPA is toothless now, run by attorneys and contractors. The epa database has gotten rid of all my asarco foias, and incorrectly stated that the last (only one in their new database) had no response (it id, six searchable dvds.) The wa- d.c.- foia-attorney refuses to open the email showing him the actual response although he was cooperative over the phone 🙄🤔🤣

We all crave safety: a job, a home, education for the kids, good safe foods, retirement.  We fail at times to speak up when these are affected at a slow pot boil (ie frog in a warming pan). 

You all are in a slow pot boil.

May God help us all because what they burned at asarco for a decade (more, imho) was worst of the bad, and after i got the 73 page document released thru nytimes and the el paso site shut down, they moved it to Hayden, arizona - - now a superfund (just like east helena mt, which received what el paso tx received/burned.)

The cleanup trustee never looked at the invoices/contaminants listed in that nytimes revealed document. Those invoices are in the public domain because they are listed in the back of a now public document---- but, are still kept sealed. No journalist or attorney has ever gone after those.

We do not know the level of following contaminants:

Pcbs

Dioxins

Forever chemicals used in firefighting foams

Beta radioactive particles (reported by epa to be highest in the usa in 1998 El Paso TX)

And others just as bad or worse

Read this!!!!

Asarco cleanup trustee keeps trying to sell off asarco toxic land without disclosing ANY of the contaminants listed in back of the now public (10/2006) document's invoice list (see 1998 usdoj epa asarco 73 page confidential for settlement purposes only (now public) document). 

A huge huge arsenic bubble is right underneath the main smelter site. Can't smell, taste that chemical. 

Slag releases its toxins gradually until after 100 years about all is released. If you do not believe, put a piece in a zip lock bag and look at bag after a week- most pieces will off-gas and puff up the bag! We use it as lawn gravel. 😟

Channel ends at asarco site, which keeps its old (but renewed) water permit to discharge water to state route (paisano).  They do their best, but some day we may be paying huge storm water fees to remove asarco's toxic waste from water we need to reuse. 

See picture of the guy overseeing lining of storm water channel with toxic black slag. Slag exposed to the wind.

He wears an ARCADIS private contractor shirt. 

EPA lowers soil-lead threshold for East Helena yard cleanups Helena Independent Record

 "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is moving forward with more cleanup of lead in East Helena residential yards following the closing of a public comment period.

The federal agency said Friday in a news release it finalized what is called an "explanation of significant differences" document that lowers the soil-lead cleanup level at the East Helena Superfund Site from 500 parts per million to 400 ppm. The new language also removes the 1,000 ppm cleanup action level previously used to trigger yard cleanups at the site......

The EPA also recently released national guidance lowering the screening level for soil-lead in residential yards to 200 ppm, or to 100 ppm if there are multiple sources of lead contamination."

Story link

BATTLE FOR SECRET ASARCO DOCUMENTS CONTINUES( 2010)

The Texas Observer

BATTLE FOR SECRET ASARCO DOCUMENTS CONTINUES

by FORREST WILDER

JANUARY 28, 2010, 12:00 AM, CST

"The following is a report by super-duper Observer intern Laura Burke:

Really, what would inspire the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to renew the permit of one of the worst polluters in Texas’ history? State Senator Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso) is pretty sure the answer to that question lies hidden in internal documents that TCEQ is fighting like hell to keep under seal.

The internal agency documents might reveal details about secret meetings between TCEQ commissioners and representatives of the now-defunct copper smelter ASARCO that occurred while TCEQ was considering the renewal of the company’s air permit in 2008....."

Link to story

Chatgpt refuses to search for a public document that had been kept secret 8 yrs and now released since 2006 🤣

 

2009 Sierra Club scrapbook asarco to close for good.

 Comment in response to

https://blogs.sierraclub.org/scrapbook/2009/02/polluting-el-paso-smelter-to-close-for-good.html

I treasure the Thank you card from Ms Chew's mom for the years of research i did, uncovering the 73 page USDOJ EPA Asarco confidential for settlement purposes only document. A TCEQ manager referred to this document in an interview and it cost him his job. It became public domain with his comment and I was able to get it. That document was covered in a 2006 front page New York Times story, and a subsequent national press conference at base of the Asarco stack, on Paisano el paso texas. I wrote and paid $300 for the electronic prnewswire press release that caught attention of the nytimes, but only Ms Chew backed me at press conference, not local sierra club. In order to gain national news story I could not release the document locally to groups until that day. Only Bill Addington, Mariana Chew, the sunland park environmental group (taylor moore esq and kids from anapra) backed me with full confidence, along with community members and an Asarco ex-worker. Asarco was there, counter-releasing news of nerve quench water rocky mt arsenal for gov, and an activist whom i mistakenly trusted with the document (he printed and distributed many copies of it at event, without holding my address confidential (was on top page), potentially endangering me as that had not been public, and indeed I was removed from my teaching job and fully blacklisted, and never worked again).   If you are an activist reading this, understand that many working on an issue will use it to advance their own standing with others, usually to gain money or work.  By the time i found out, he had already distributed many copies. Mariana went on the help me fight the re-permitting of Asarco's wastewater permit, which I wrote &filed given how Mr. Moore esq had taught, and she worked to get binational signatures and personally fax for me.  She would later receive a Sierra Club Nat. Award in CA for her work on Asarco.   My research was over 8 yrs, Taylor Moore esq and others (see legal suit over installing new contops, @ 1990) also had gathered huge amounts.  It culminated in a regional epa director being fired after he released over 5 dvds of searchable asarco related documents to me that Sen. Shapleigh (he was given one box) was never given because EPA had stored the nearly dozen boxes in a different region (which contained the encycle whistleblower report).  The attorney for the ex workers was trying to negotiate for release of three boxes. For some reason in response to my foia, all were released. Currently, EPA has erased all my asarco foias and one remains, but is listed as "no response" when actually it had a response (a set of those over 5 dvds).  Presently the Wa DC federal register foia attorney I talked with (who had appeared to be helpful) will not open my email with photograph showing the response letter, envelope and discs.  

It is also nigh impossible to find this blog unless you go to it directly, now.

Had I not followed Sierra blanca nuclear waste activist, Bill Addington's advice after getting that 73 page document, it would not have gone national. He explained it was a national story, told me what to do. He said if I released it locally, Asarco would bury it. To this day, that news story can be found when so much other information is now lost.  This region owed a lot to his mom Gloria and him for their fight, because it ended in 1998 and was the cause of asarco idling the el pado plant by 2/99. Had they not fought the good fight with a great team, many losing everything doing it, it is my belief that EPA and ASARCO would have overlooked EPA's 1998 finding that el paso had the highest beta radiation air and soil in the entire USA in 1998.

- mrs mcmurray ms biological sciences, dual certification biology science grades 8-12,   2023