The next best thing to a press release....

Think about posting comments at the end of each Asarco newspaper article you read online, because anyone reading that article will likely read your comments. It is an opportunity to get the community's voice out into the media for free.

The easiest way to begin is to go to google.com and sign up to get news on "Asarco". Google will post new stories to your email, and then you can to to those stories and see if it is possible for you to post a comment.

: )

June 9 (SAT) ASARCO Environmental manager to speak at the InForm EL Paso venue Ay Caramba! Restaurant on N. Mesa west of I10 10 AM

Hi! Everyone,

Date: Saturday, June 9, 2007

Time: 10:00 AM To Noon

Speaker: Mr. Lairy Johnson, ASARCO Environmental Manager

Place: Ay Caramba! Restaurant 8001 N. Mesa Street, Suite G

(Former Location Of Leo's Mexican Restaurant)

Remember, InForm El Paso is the ONLY venue where citizens have almost 2 hours of unstructured, face-to-face dialog with people that affect the quality of life in El Paso.

InForm El Paso Coordinators

rjs41[at]alumni.cwru.edu

915-845-2850

AP Article in Fort Worth Star-Telegram, does not mention a decade of illegal sham-recycling

Friday, Jun 8, 2007 Asarco copper smelter may reopen
Fort Worth Star Telegram - Fort Worth,TX,USA
Soil tests in 2002 revealed elevated levels of lead and arsenic at 45 homes near the Asarco plant in El Paso, which had to be cleaned up. ...

La Lorona, the crying woman

Art by Santiago Gonzalez Aragon 2004
(From series done about Asarco Smelter,
Smeltertown, El Paso, TX)

At ASARCO we played with the Dragon

"American Smelting And Refining Company" 

At ASARCO we played with the Dragon.
Making our way across sand, slag, and stones,
To the drainage dragon cave, cliff-face huge,
To the reptilian cloacal abyss.
Climbed down the steep cliff, inched along the lip
Stepped across mountain-ridge steep angle-tip
Blasted out of our minds, we crossed the entry
Way-Gate with an Escherian flip
Inner ears protesting, said, Welcome

To Hell, down, in the deep deep dark shadows.
Half sliding, debouched in the L-shaped cave,
Scramble, the sussuration of bellows
Guide our guests to where the land is a grave
Walls close in, darkness breathes. As Orpheus
Leads Eurydike , gathering black
Till the bend, light comes, low and sulpherous
Forbidden, we forbid all looking back,
Wend the way to the Gate of Tartarus,
This industrial dragon's lair, ASARCO,
To chilled first glimpse of this man-made Hades,
Out the back-gate, our checkpoint Alpo,
Watching for Shelob, or the Satanic
Cerberus, the dreaded Security.

Virgins lead forth by the cid-head herder
The Dragon stretched before us, moldering
Mechanical monster of a murdered
Land, our personal magical Mordor,
In the shrouded shadow of Golgotha,
The Night-forgotten Mont Cristo del Rey,
Wary of dogs, awed by Juggernaut
Fearful from hobbit as freshly dead souls,
We crept over slag to unhallowed ground
Gruesome, desolate, this barren set is
Truly worthy of Frankenstein Unbound
There ASARCO lives, breathes, and even eats.

The Dragon had killed, a oft deadly-beast.
First traces that showed depended on chance.
Three hoboes sleeping were laid to rest when
So it seems, we could see the Dragon dance
At a site hideous and unshriven
Where the dragon might show itself, and stir. 
"Beep-Beep-Beep" as truck backed to edge of pit,
Halted, dripped detritus of the Refining Fire,
Slow flow of molten slag, luminescent,
Glowing, Tumbling, half-congealing jelly
Falling down to Sheol, the open grave bed

To the Dragon-kill pit, long ago horror,
Deep down in Sheol, the open grave-bed
The Dragon crapped, as we had seen.  "Beep-Beep"
Went the truck's warning.  Down flowed the doom
On the hapless tramps.  To this day, one sees
The molded outline of their bodies, but
The bodies were burned to ash.  Carbonized.
Rumor says one of them at last awoke,
For the mold showed his puzzled expression
At point Bravo, the Orange fire descended

Through the deadly fumes, across the ruined land
Marching, approach to the Dragon's secret
Treasure. The Dragon killed, preened itself, curled
Talons around the bone-yard, some rough beast
Slouching.  A half-hill hid devastation,
Death-seeded, from the oblivious cars
Speeding along I-10, on their side a hill
Curtained the view. on our side, the Dragon,
Crouched, killed, feed, shit behind sheer carved cliff-wall

You see, once the people, the workers, the slaves,
Lived on site, a village called Smeltertown.
One by one, two by two, four by four, more
And more, family by family died,
Coughing the black-blood from their lungs until
They could cough no more, they died. None knew why
But we know now.  Uneasy the dead did rest
For the Dragon had killed, slow consumption,
Kept the bones as a token of triumph
In the old Smeltertown cemetery,
Hidden by the scarred sepulchral half-hill.

by T.S. Ross
http://www.unlikelystories.org/old/americansmeltingand.html

National Radio Show Features Ohio Network Live Tomorrow June 8

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

From: THE OHIO NETWORK FOR THE CHEMICALLY INJURED:

Note: We've just been confirmed to do a follow-up to our May 25th show tomorrow. It will air live on Friday, June 8, 11 a.m. EST (8 a.m. Pacific time). If you cannot tune in at that time, it will be available on the web (see below for instructions) soon, for about a month. For further information contact Carrie Crane at (440) 845-1888

RADIO SHOW DISCUSSES NEW TECHNOLOGY

TO IDENTIFY TOXINS IN YOUR ENVIRONMENT

Cleveland, OH: The “Detect and Protect” project was featured on the national radio show “Your Health Matters,” Dr. Gloria Gilbere’s weekly program that provides “health information you can use.” Her May 25^th broadcast addresses how to be your own detective with the use of new technology.

The University of N. Carolina at Asheville, Environmental Quality Institute (EQI); the Ohio Network for the Chemically Injured (ONFCI); and Thermo-Scientific, manufacturer of the NITON x-ray fluorescence analyzer, have joined together to create an educational project that will provide low cost metal/element testing most people could not otherwise afford, while creating data to understand the link between the existence of metals in various media and health problems.

You can listen to a live recording for up to a month after the broadcast by visiting www.healthylife.net and clicking “archives” at the top of the page. Then click on Dr. Gloria Gilbere (Your Health Matters) and scroll down and click on the date 5/25/07.

This is a great opportunity to learn which of the 26 metals/elements may be harming your health, even if you don’t know which ones they are. To learn how to be a participant in this educational study or for additional information about FREE TESTING at ONFCI’s community event to be held on August 11, 2007, visit ONFCI’s website at: www.ohionetwork.org or phone (440) 845-1888.

posted by
http://www.noccawood.ca

subscribe to list service at website

What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.
Albert Pine

Last year: Filing for party status for everyone drinking the water (Ore Handling permit #4151)

20060305 (a year ago)

TCEQ Office of the Chief Clerk [MC-105]                                                                 
P.O. Box 13087
Austin, TX 78711-3087                                        

 
BY:  Fax (512) 239-3311 and FEDEX

RE:  CONTESTED HEARING FOR ASARCO, LLC AIR QUALITY PERMIT NO. 4151 AUTHORIZING CONTINUED OPERATION OF THE ORE HANDLING AND STORAGE FACILITY LOCATED AT 2301 W. PAISANO DR., EL PASO TX

Dear Sirs:

I request a Contested Case Hearing be held in El Paso for the renewal of Asarco’s Air Quality Permit - # 4151.

I file for Affected Party status for all people in this region who drink water originating from the old open-conduit American-canal. From mid-March through mid-October every year El Paso uses the water passing through the old-American-canal next to Asarco for our El Paso City drinking water (and for agricultural irrigation).  Dry deposition of dusts into water supplies has long been known as a hydrological-pollutant-source.

Just a few hundred feet or less from this canal, the ore handling at Asarco emits ultra-fine particulates, PM 2.5’s, and coarse dusts next to our drinking supply.   The prevailing winds at Asarco travel that direction (toward the canal, American Dam, and the Rio Grande) the greatest percentage of time.  Up until 1999, Asarco would bring illegal hazardous wastes from Asarco-ENCYCLE to the El Paso facility, unload these and process these along with the ores, near this canal.

IBWC has thoroughly documented many Asarco problems impinging upon the canal. It is not possible for our City’s water system to test and remove many of these contaminants presently (i.e. arsenic).   Potentially, these contaminants can disproportionately affect the young, the ill, the elderly, and the unborn.   IBWC told TCEQ that the remediation of the Asarco-contaminants already beneath our leaking-canal will cost over 24 Million dollars.  The renewal of this Asarco permit #4151 will worsen the problem by enabling dry deposition of dusts from ore handling, when we already face an expensive toxic burden.

Besides being among the City water users relying upon water originating from the old American canal, I live three miles from the Asarco smelter.   When my swamp cooler runs, it can bring those same PM 2.5 particulates (which remain suspended for weeks/travel far) into my home, equalizing the dust-levels inside and out.  Not even HEPA filters will remove PM 2.5’s (HEPA-filter have a 3 micron limit).   I do not have the luxury of closing my windows to keep out this toxic material --- my evaporative swamp coolers are in essence open windows.   And most folks in this arid region use this cooling method.  All chemical exposure models which make the assumption that being indoors limits your exposure become invalid when homes use evaporative air cooling.  

The renewal of Permit 4151 will violate the Treaty of La Paz.

Residents in this region have been (and continue to be) denied due process of law guaranteed them by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution because individuals who participated in the decision-making process with respect to this permit application have potential conflicts of interest.   Attached hereto and incorporated herein by reference is a copy of an internal EPA memorandum dated June 28, 2001, which contains the following handwritten sentence:  “The TNRCC is concerned that the El Paso sampling plan doesn’t undermine the ASARCO Corpus sampling delima (sic).”  An inescapable inference from this sentence is the fact that ASARCO has compromised employees of both the EPA and TCEQ.   Both ASARCO and the regulators are concealing certain ASARCO contaminants from the residents of Corpus Christi and the Paso del Norte Region.  Every individual who either knows, or should know that ASARCO’s contamination is being concealed is exposed to both criminal and civil liability. 

ASARCO is not in compliance with federal, state and local environmental laws but no legitimate enforcement actions have been taken against the company because ASARCO has compromised employees of both the EPA and the TCEQ.   We are therefore unable to comply with the requirement that we provide ASARCO’s compliance history.

NOTICE: THIS WILL DIRECT YOUR ATTENTION TO UNITED STATES V. PANARELLA, 277 F.3^RD 678 AND UNITED STATES V. GRAY, NO. 95-50533, SEPTEMBER 18, 1996.  IT IS REQUESTED THAT NO PERSON WHO EITHER KNOWS, OR SHOULD KNOW, THAT ANY ASARCO CONTAMINATION OF CORPUS CHRISTI OR PASO DEL NORTE REGION IS BEING CONCEALED PARTICIPATE IN ANY FURTHER ACTION IN THIS MATTER.  THIS REQUEST INCLUDES, BUT IS NOT LIMITED TO THE ATTORNEYS AND OTHER REPRESENTATIVES OF ASARCO.

Sincerely,
Heather McMurray
M.S. Biological Sciences 

Asarco Ore Handling Permit (how can they re-open without one?)

20070607

The purpose of this letter is to inform you that we have received your request for information under the Texas Public Information Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 552. 

The ASARCO permit 4151 is currently in the Air Permits Division for the technical review.  Information relating to this review will be provided to you and others on the mailing list once the review is complete.  At this time, there is not an estimated time-frame for completion of the technical review. 

If you have any further questions concerning this matter, you may contact me at (512) 239-2427, or e-mail at mmahaney@tceq.state.tx.us.

Sincerely,

Mary Mahaney
Open Records Coordinator
Air Permits Division

Asarco water permits TXR15BN67, TXR05P461

2007-April: Per your request of ASARCO Inc. El Paso, there is no combined storm-wastewater permit. There was however a Texas Land Application Permit ( TLAP ) Number WQ0002321000 for a facility named Asarco located at 2401 West Paisano, southeast of the intersection of Executive ParkRoad and US Highway 80A, in El Paso. This permit expired on September 1,2000. We do not have any records that show they have a pending renewal. Asarco currently has two Storm Water Permits,
TXR15BN67 and TXR05P461.....
A storm water general permit is issued for a five-year term. and currently all of our storm water general permits are state-wide. A public comment period is provided during the development of a general permit, prior to issuance, and a public meeting is typically held as well. However, coverage
under an approved general permit is not subject to public comment. The TCEQ an administrative review of the notice of intent (application). An interested person does have an opportunity to file a motion to overturn (MTO) on an authorization under a general permit under the TCEQ rules at 30 TAC 5 50.139. Under this rule, an interested person has 23 days from the date we acknowledge an authorization to file an MTO. If the MTO is considered by the Commission, it will be scheduled for a Agenda meeting. For additional information on filing an MTO, I would recomend contacting the TCEQ's Office of Public Assistance.

TXR15BN67 is a construction authorization number. The NOI was acknowledged on May 30,2006. Because this was acknowledged approximately one year ago, the opportunity to file an MTO has
passed. The CGP will be renewed in early 2008; so it is possible that a renewal NO1 will be required at that time. TXR05P461 is an MSGP authorization number. The MSGP (TXR050000) was renewed in August 2006, and renewal NOIs were due by November 12,2006 (or by December 12, 2006 if submitting electronically). The TCEQ's Storm Water Processing Center is currently entering the data from the renewal NOIs, and TXR05P461 has not yet been processed. If Asarco applied for a renewal of coverage, then an MTO could be filed within 23 days of TCEQ's approval of the NOI. For an update of the status of the renewal, the interested person can contact the Storm Water Processing Center at SWPermit@tcea.state.tx.us or by phone at (512) 245-0130.
It is possible that a different permit number will be assigned for the site, so it may be beneficial to search by authorization number (TXROjP461) as well as by company name and location.

-- TCEQ Customer Information and Assistance Team Water Quality Division

TCEQ is giving citizens from now until June 18 to write in and let them know how you feel about Asarco re-opening in El Paso

Voice your Opinion about Asarco

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is giving citizens from now until June 18 to write in and let them know how you
feel about Asarco re-opening in El Paso.

La Donna Castanuela

Texas Commission on Environmental Quality

Office of the Chief Clerk MC 105

P.O. Box 13087

Austin, TX 78711-3087

Story Created: May 4, 2007 at 5:36 PM MDT

Find this article at: http://www.kdbc.com/home/7344171.html?skipthumb=Y

How to receive all notices and updates for the Asarco El Paso Facility

20070300
In your earlier email you indicated that you had submitted a written hearing request for permit #4151.  Submitting comments or a hearing request in writing on a particular pending permitting action places you on the mailing list for that specific permit. I have confirmed with the Chief Clerk's office you are on the mailing list for the pending renewal #4151.

 

In order to be placed on a mailing list for ANY pending permitting action you must submit in writing either comments, a hearing request, a public meeting request, a request to be placed on the mailing list for that pending permit action or a request to be placed on the permanent mailing list for the specific permit.

 

If you are interested in receiving all future notices for the El Paso Asarco facility, I would recommend that you submit a written request to be placed on the "permanent mailing list " for the specific Asarco permit numbers that you are interested in.

 

You can find the permit numbers by searching the Air Permit database at

http://www2.tceq.state.tx.us/airperm/

 

Submit your written request to

 

Attn: Chief Clerk MC 105

TCEQ

PO Box 13087

Austin, Texas 78701

 

Sincerely, 

The Office of Public Assistance

Asarco Ore Handling Permit #4151

[2006, April 11] No NOA/Preliminary Decision or written response to Comments has been received as of 2007, June 06

The Office of Public Assistance (OPA) is responsible for responding to the public on pending permitting actions therefore your email has been forwarded to OPA for a response.

The Asarco permit renewal application #4151 is seeking authorization to continue operation for the ore handling and storage facility. Within this permit application there are two projects that apply; 120312 and 121726. Any action on an operating permit or any other permits that this facility holds will be handled separately.

The renewal (#4151) is still under technical review. Your hearing request has been received and you are the mailing list for the renewal. You should receive confirmation of receipt of your hearing request soon. Once the technical review is complete and if the application meets the rules, the applicant will be required to publish the Notice of Application and Preliminary Decision. This notice will be mailed to you and all others on the mailing list. Please note that the technical review typically takes several months to complete. Because contested case hearing requests were received off of the first notice, the Notice of Receipt and Intent, the comment period remains open throughout the technical review process. At the end of the review process, staff will compile a written Response to Comments to all timely filed comments. This will also be mailed to you.

If you have any further questions, please contact OPA via email or at 800/687-4040.

Sincerely,

The Office of Public Assistance

Don't touch the Dust...

Mago Orona - Celestial Girl mural, Douglas Elementary School, El Paso

They say: my sister's baby was born without a brain,
My neighbor's baby has a fused skull,
My friend is missing a limb

Heart defects in kids are rampant
My young friend has a scarred head
brain tumors at 21
3 dead at a school from cancer behind the eyes

It is allergies they say
As their noses bleed
As the dust stirs in the heavy wind
and lungs find it difficult to breath

The children are born with rashes
Skin with lumps and bumps
bones with cancers

Don't drink the water a young mother is told
Don't breathe the air, an elder is told
Don't touch the dust, a child is told.

Don't touch the dust.

Anapra, N.M., the most lead contaminated spot in New Mexico (see smelter down-river in the background), per the April, 28, 1982 Washington Post article (Leon found this) ... "the 102 folks who live in Anapra, N.M. are peeved with their Texas neighbors in El Paso. It seems that Anapra has the highest lead contamination readings in the state and the New Mexico officials claim the cause is a copper and lead smelting plant owned by Asarco Inc. in El Paso."

Anaprans (Sunland Park Environmental Group) want the responsible environmental officials to step down and for cleanup to begin. Anapra, N.M. is two miles from the smelter.

Asarco Texas Smelter Secretly Burned Toxic Waste for Nearly a Decade

NATIONAL | October 11, 2006
Copper Plant Illegally Burned Hazardous Waste, E.P.A. Says
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
A bankrupt copper giant facing billions of dollars in pollution claims across the nation pretended for years to recycle metals while illegally burning hazardous waste, according to an E.P.A. document.

see a copy of the document, posted at
http://archives.newspapertree.com/Asarco/asarco_1998_memo.pdf

Sham Recycling Creates Sham Decision?

Interview with Physiologist about Lead poisoning

YouTube:
Lead Poisoning - Evelyn A. Mauss - ECU #518

VERY GOOD! She is a consultant with the NRDC

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl5NV6EHBl8

By Marilyn Berlin Snell
From the May/June 2006 issue of Sierra magazine

http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200605/goingforbroke/page1.asp

Asarco El Paso Smelter Cemetery 12/05

2004 Texas Observer article on Asarco El Paso

http://www.texasobserver.org/article.php?aid=1766

The New Wave of Border Activism

Social Movements Crossing Frontiers

by Kent Paterson

"....

Reality Tourists in a Border City

Another highlight of the BSF was a "reality tour" of low-income Ciudad Juarez neighborhoods and industrial sites. Halting on the banks of the Rio Grande in the Felipe Angeles colonia, reality tour guests peered directly across the river at the mothballed Asarco copper smelter located in El Paso but also only a couple of miles from the southern New Mexico city of Sunland Park. The old smelter is a rusting emblem of how environmental issues affect communities on both sides of the border.

Shut down in 1999, the plant is at the center of a fight between Asarco's owner, Grupo Mexico, and environmental groups and political leaders from Mexico and the United States over the company's plans to renew its Texas state environmental permit and restart production. The Carlyle Group associated with George Herbert Walker Bush is a principal investor in Grupo Mexico.

Asarco opponents maintain that a revived smelter will degrade an already polluted binational airshed, and they blame the transnational company for decades of lead, arsenic and other heavy metals contamination of neighborhoods in El Paso, Ciudad Juarez and Sunland Park — a problem the company denies was its fault. Immediately preceding the BSF, the Sierra Club [well, it was a Sierra Club member, but the actual news came from EPGTLO and SPEG] released a memo from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) it obtained through the Freedom of Information Act that reported Asarco had been illegally incinerating hazardous wastes during the 1990s. The document did not spell out exactly what Asarco burned.

Mariana Chew, the Sierra Club's El Paso–Ciudad Juarez field organizer, retorted during the reality tour that the environmental organization wants answers about what was burned and why the information was concealed from the public. "They knew it and they didn't tell us," Chew affirmed, adding that the Sierra Club demands the permanent closure of the Asarco site and the cleanup of its environs.

In a press statement, Asarco minimized the incineration revelation, contending that the company had merely recycled materials and had cleared up the matter with the EPA years ago. But Jacqueline Barragan, a member of the Students Against Asarco group at the University of Texas El Paso, which is situated behind the old plant and afflicted with "hot spots" of lead contamination, was aghast at the news of the EPA memo. "I felt violated, and actually it wasn't a surprise either that the city has covered this up and that these environmental agencies that are supposedly out there to watch out for our health aided in covering up this terrible secret," Barragan fumed....."

see:
http://newspapertree.com/politics/1094-epa-memo-adds-fuel-to-asarco-fire