mothers blame Mafia as toxic rubbish spills over
Guardian Unlimited - UK
'In Naples, we could stop the Camorra from putting poison into city dumps by simply recycling,' said Marfella. 'The Camorra is scared stiff of recycling.' "
Scroll to end: click web view. Heather Mcmurray 's research uncovering poisoning of 1000 square miles around El Paso by Asarco smelter through what the EPA & US DOJ said was illegal burning of illegal hazardous/radioactive wastes 1991 to 1998. We have never been told what actinides, forever chemicals, dioxins etc are present from illegal Asarco actions(see 73 page 1998 conf. for settlement purposes only DOJ EPA Asarco doc,10/06 nytimes) see "Asarco secret document"
Please donate (see sidebar) to help recoup costs of the work to uncover and blog the information contained here"THE ONLY THING NECESSARY FOR THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL IS FOR GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING"
mothers blame Mafia as toxic rubbish spills over
Guardian Unlimited - UK
'In Naples, we could stop the Camorra from putting poison into city dumps by simply recycling,' said Marfella. 'The Camorra is scared stiff of recycling.' "
"
Investors show strong interest in resurgent copper producer
Arizona Republic - Phoenix,AZ,USA
Tucson copper producer Asarco LLC has so far signed confidentiality agreements with 14 investors interested in funding its eventual emergence from Chapter ...
ASARCO - The eyesore effects rich people's property values
By David K
The city spent $50000 of your tax dollars to find out what I've known all along - ASARCO is about rich people wanting to increase their property values in Kern at the expense of good jobs. The city was nice enough to prove my theory. ...
Refuse the Juice - http://refusethejuice.typepad.com/thinkaboutit/
"
"Google News Alert for: asarco
ASARCO Plant Manager Bob Litle Responds
KTSM-TV - El Paso,TX,USA
Specifically, the majority of the businesses contacted are in favor of ASARCO opening (5-2). In addition, the most recent residential poll that was ..."
Associated Press - January 16, 2008 1:24 PM ET WASHINGTON (AP) - Asarco says it needs two more months to file its bankruptcy-exit plan. The Tucson-based copper-miner says its parent...
KVOA - News - http://www.kvoa.com/global/category.asp?c=40644
Tucson-based Asarco requests more time to exit bankruptcy
Tucson-based Asarco LLC needs two more months to file its bankruptcy-exit plan and says its parent company, a unit of Mexican mining company Grupo Mexico SA, is behind the delay.
All Headlines - http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/allheadlines/
Answers to water quality hard to get
Nogales International - Nogales,AZ,USA
We didn't know what we had and didn't know what to do with it" In the mid 1990s, Asarco wanted to purchase parts of Unit 3 and, although Wilson says he does ..."
Grupo Mexico: Asarco hides data
Arizona Daily Star - Tucson,AZ,USA
By Edvard Pettersson
In August, Asarco asked the bankruptcy court to boost Lehman's monthly compensation and increase the fees the firm could earn based on a sale of Asarco's assets or the sale of debt or equity as part of a bankruptcy-exit plan."
Harbinger Blames Lehman in Asarco Case
Houston Chronicle - United States
[it isn't called a "feeding frenzy" for nothing... note the Piranha-like effect!... meanwhile word-of-mouth gossip is that ASARCO is advertising in Louisiana for steelworkers to start work in El Paso for ASARCO when it opens....]
"Associated Press - January 9, 2008 3:15 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AP) - Hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners is trying to shoot down Lehman Brothers Holdings' bid to get paid in Asarco LLC's bankruptcy case..."
http://www.kswo.com/global/category.asp?c=84964
"Seems as if the Asarco types have been breathing their own emissions for too long.
When City Council announced that it would use a new strategy in the fight against Asarco by citing Texas environmental rules, Asarco vice president for environmental affairs Thomas L. Aldrich lashed back with "Never in our 110 years in El Paso has there been such an anti-business council ..."
Uh, hold it right there. Tommy. Better check your gas mask; probably the air-inlet filters are clogged and you're experiencing oxygen deprivation.
Calling this City Council anti-business is like calling Attila the Hun anti-violence. It just ain't so.
This city tosses out tax abatements like confetti at a political convention. It's bending over backward to do everything possible to welcome and make comfortable the new troops and dependents at Fort Bliss. Public-private partnerships with key business entities have been expanded. Downtown revitalization on the scale we're experiencing and anticipating is hardly anti-business. The list goes on and on and on.
Asarco is a 19th century polluter trying desperately to function in a 21st century environment whose inhabitants are cognizant of the huge dangers Asarco-type pollution poses.
We don't want Asarco. We don't need Asarco. No wonder Tommy is a bit churlish these days."
Posted by Charlie Edgren on January 09, 2008 at 11:24 AM in Environment | Permalink
"Saviano said the Camorra controls the entire cycle of garbage disposal in Campania, running the dumps, waste transport companies and other businesses, raking in what anti-mafia prosecutors estimate is $880 million per year.".......
...."Saviano said Camorra-run companies routinely win contracts to dispose of toxic waste from northern Italian industries by underbidding competitors, then dispose of it illegally and untreated in Campania's rivers and dumps. Camorra-run companies also mix toxic waste with other materials and resell it as fertilizer, he said."...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22573281/City starting new legal battle to keep Asarco closed
"El Paso Times - El Paso,TX,USA
By David Crowder / El Paso Times The city of El Paso is starting a second legal action in its battle to keep Asarco from reopening. ..."
The City Council voted on Tuesday to take a new step in its legal fight to keep Asarco closed, but Asarco claims it is just part of an "anti-business" environment.
Posted on January 8, 2008
The El Paso City Council on Tuesday took a new move in its legal battle against the possible reopening of Asarco.With a unanimous vote, the council moved to allow the city’s outside counsel to file a petition calling for the revocation of the smelter’s air emissions permit issued by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, or TCEQ...."
Naples rubbish crisis turns nasty
Independent - London,England,UK
... angry residents and the Camorra, the Neapolitan mafia, continues to make money by controlling the illegal dumping of millions of tonnes of toxic waste. ..."
"Readers Respond 1.2.08: "Offensive Blather"
from the NPT Inbox
The first batch of response from the New Year! Readers respond to readers respond, and Asarco, and Leon and Burton.
Posted on January 2, 2008
.....As a party in the Contested Case Hearing for the Camino Real Landfill in SP, NM and One Who Stand Against Asarco, we as a regional community must wake up and smell the contaminating industries and the conflicted agencies that allow them to continue to cluster. The cumulative effects of the decades of environmental injustice will continue to harm our quality of life, the air we breathe, and the water we drink.
Join in with all the people yelling out loud for the cause and help take control of our community. To them - CHEERS! To NPT thanks for covering the story, To the EP Times where were/are you? and to the rest of you - How about a New Year’s resolution of meaningful involvement!! Get UP, GET Out and Get Involved. -- Robert
---
"Readers Respond to Asarco - volcanic rock?" If anyone is interested, - i.e. David claims that the hills around ASARCO are black because they are volcanic rock!!! - check out the Google Maps for ASARCO, El Paso, Texas, and you will see, that black is not volcanic rock, but the soot from ASARCO! You will see the black scar on the land and the rocks came from the smoke stacks at ASARCO. Do notbe fooled folks, as ASARCO is known for pulling the sooty wool over the public's eyes, that the real culprit is and always will be ASARCO/Grupo De Mexico. So if the Grupo De Mexico bankers want ASARCO so badly, let them dismantle the system, and smoke stacks and rebuild it in their own backyards and see how they like it. And if they don't do that, then why should they expect Americans to allow it back into smelting duty. It’s all that copper value - greed over public health and welfare. Business as usual - down and dirty. -- Lynda Duke"
The great Mexican patriot, Benito Juarez, said: "Respect for the rights of others is peace." That principle is the foundation stone of our hemispheric relations.....we know that the American States must stand together if we are to assure that the weak are protected, that might does not make right, that our peoples are to have the privilege of democratic choice.
When I visit Coyote Canyon in August 2007, the Nezes are back home, and the place doesn't look the same. I drive past the hogan where Bertha's father lived. The flags are gone; the dirt surrounding the octagonal structure has been scraped. So has the earth around the Nezes' home and horse corral.
But the massive mound of contaminated earth, which the EPA had covered in heavy black plastic, has not been moved. The plastic is torn and blowing in the wind, along with fine particles of contaminated soil--a threat to the Navajos that seems, in my mind, a metaphor for the nuclear waste problem downstream."
http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200801/powerhungry/
The audience learned that the people representing the Landfill work for
the nuclear and waste industry, lobbying for dumps in poor and
disadvantaged communities. A N.M. supreme court decision had ruled that
the state must consider the cumulative impact of industries on a
community when siting a new one. The Camino Real dump does not want to
have the impact from ASARCO considered when renewing the Landfill's permit.
The Hearing Days run from 8 to 9 PM daily, including Saturdays. Sunland
Park is represented by a volunteer group and retired attorney.
The hall is unheated except for 2 space heaters and a propane picnic
heater. The chairs are metal and cold for the audience. There is no
pay for the volunteers, or monies for exhibits, copying, gasoline etc.
The opposing team for the Landfill has two law firms with a total of
over 80 attorneys. The witnesses yesterday had two attorneys, and no
medical doctors.
It is possible that the dump leaks water into the aquifer and Rio Grande
and it is not possible to determine what has been dumped there. The
Landfill wants to renew their permit for 10 more years.
"by NPT Staff
NPT presents three bankruptcy court documents related to a $27 million claim for contamination of IBWC property adjacent to Asarco. The IBWC cites a "potential threat to the Rio Grande," a source of drinking and irrigation water for El Paso.
Posted on December 5, 2007
Editor's note: The following is to be heard by bankruptcy court Dec. 7. The three court documents -- linked to below these brief excerpts -- relate to a $27 million claim by the International Boundary and Water Commission against Asarco for contamination on IBWC property.
***
http://newspapertree.com/politics/1883-ibwc-filed-27-million-contamination-claim-against-asarco
"DISCHARGES of radioactivity and other forms of pollution from Europe's biggest tin smelter at Hull in Britain are not to blame for causing abnormally high numbers of childhood cancers in villages close to the site, according to Britain's pollution 'police'.
Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Pollution cleared the Capper Pass complex on Humberside, pictured here, of blame last week in a report that describes one of the most detailed investigations ever undertaken by the organisation's air pollution and radiochemical inspectors.
The chimney at the plant, which is 180 metres high, discharges radioactive polonium-210 [LEAD/Pb] as well as a cocktail of other toxic pollutants including antimony, arsenic, cadmium, lead, tin and zinc.
The inspectorate says that, on the basis of environmental data, predictions of dispersion patterns, radiological assessments and epidemio-logical studies, there is no evidence to link unusually high incidence of leukemia in the area with radioactive pollution from the plant. The report concludes that with the exception of cadmium, the concentrations of pollutants would not be expected to damage health.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 23, 2007) MIT researchers have found that the children of mothers whose water supplies were contaminated with arsenic during their pregnancies harbored gene expression changes that may lead to cancer and other diseases later in life. In addition to establishing the potential harmful effects of these prenatal exposures, the new study also provides a possible method for screening populations to detect signs of arsenic contamination.
This is the first time evidence of such genome-wide changes resulting from prenatal exposure has ever been documented from any environmental contaminant. It suggests that even when water supplies are cleaned up and the children never experience any direct exposure to the pollutant, they may suffer lasting damage.
The evidence comes from studies of 32 mothers and their children in a province of Thailand that experienced heavy arsenic contamination from tin mining. Similar levels of arsenic are also found in many other regions, including the US Southwest.
The research was led by Mathuros Ruchirawat, Director of the Laboratory of Environmental Toxicology of the Chulabhorn Research Institute (CRI) in Thailand, and Leona D. Samson, Director of MIT's Center for Environmental Health Sciences (CEHS) and the American Cancer Society Professor in the Departments of Biological Engineering and Biology at MIT. The first author of the study is Rebecca C. Fry, a research scientist at CEHS. Coauthors include Panida Navasumrit of the CRI and Chandni Valiathan, graduate student at MIT's Computational and Systems Biology Initiative.
The team analyzed blood that had been collected from umbilical cords at birth. The exposure of mothers to arsenic during their pregnancy was independently determined by analyzing toenail clippings -- the most reliable way of detecting past arsenic exposure.
The team found a collection of about 450 genes whose expression had been turned on or turned off in babies who had been exposed to arsenic while in the womb. That is, these genes had either become significantly more active (in most cases) or less active than in unexposed babies.
"We were looking to see whether we could have figured out that these babies were exposed in utero" just by using the gene expression screening on the stored blood samples, Samson says. "The answer was a resounding yes."
Further, the team found that a subset of just 11 of these genes could be used as a highly reliable test for determining whether babies had been born to mothers exposed to arsenic during pregnancy. Since blood samples are already taken routinely for medical tests this may provide an easier way of screening for such exposure.
The gene expression changes the group found in the exposed children are mostly associated with inflammation, which can lead to increased cancer risk. Recognizing the damaging effects of the arsenic exposure, "the government has provided alternative water sources" to the affected villages, Fry says, which means that following these children as they grow older (they are now toddlers) has the potential to show how long-lasting the effects of the prenatal exposure may be. However, she adds, this may be complicated by the fact that many people are still using the local water for cooking.
It's not yet clear how long the changes may last. "We will be testing whether these gene expression changes have persisted in these children," Fry says.
This is the first time such a response to prenatal arsenic exposure has been found in humans. But it is not entirely unexpected, Samson explains, because "in mice, when mothers are transiently exposed to arsenic in the drinking water, their progeny, in their adult life, are much more cancer-prone."
Further research could include studies of possible ways of reversing or mitigating the damage, perhaps through dietary changes, nutritional supplements, or drug treatments to counteract the gene expression changes.
Also, the group plans to do follow-up studies in different locations and with larger groups of subjects to confirm the value of the 11 "marker" genes as a reliable indicator of arsenic exposure. The researchers also aim to determine whether the gene expression changes are specific to arsenic.
This study is an example of the CEHS's efforts to promote collaborative interdisciplinary research into global environmental health issues, specifically in the developing world.
The research will be reported in the Nov. 23 issue of PLoS Genetics.
This research was funded by the National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences and the Chulabhorn Research Institute.
Adapted from materials provided by Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
By misrepresenting the source of the assertions, the Inc misrepresents the significance and context of the report, a fundamental error. Taking the GAO report on military hazwaste and Asarco out of context, the Inc defends itself with an ...
ACORN v. Asarco
http://newspapertree.com/news/1819-acorn-v-asarco
by NPT Staff
Dueling news releases from ACORN and from Asarco.
Posted on November 16, 2007
Editor's note: NPT received these two news releases, the first from the group ACORN Thursday Nov. 15, 2007, the second from Asarco the following day
***
Nov. 15, Acorn
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Thursday, November 15, 2007 Contact:
Jose Manuel Escobedo, Head Organizer
EPA to Adopt New Lead Air Standards in 2008
Health professionals weigh in on new rules impact on
Asarco application for air quality permit
EL PASO – The US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) lead expert panel has set standards more protective of public health. These new standards will directly impact Asarco’s Air Permit Application. Below is a summary of these impacts over the next ten months.
1. EPA is under a court order to adopt a new final lead air standard by September 1, 2008.
2. The new lead air standard will be no higher than 0.2 ug/m^3 and as low as 0.05 ug/m^3. The current standard is 1.5 ug/m^3.
3. ASARCO's newest air model said it would meet the highest end of the new lead standard, but it also suggests that ASARCO will have no margin of safety and the new lead air standard could be tighter than ASARCO's air modeling of 0.2 ug/m^3 meaning the smelter can not comply.
4. The new EPA lead air standard may be based on monthly averaging which would be more protective and more stringent than the current Lead NAAQS using quarterly averaging. ASARCO's air modeling is based on quarterly averaging and not monthly averaging.
5. The EPA is planning to issue the new lead proposal in March 2008, to
provide the public ample time to comment. Public comment period will
follow later in the spring.
6. EPA is required by a consent decree to issue a public proposal regarding the
lead standards by May 1, 2008.
WHO: El Paso County Medical Society, ACORN, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid, representative from Senator Shapleigh’s office and available for questions via phone: Neil Carmen, Clean Air Program Director, Lone Star Chapter – Sierra Club, Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc – Chair, Department of Community and Preventative Medicine, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine
WHAT: Press Conference: Impact of new EPA rules on Asarco application for air permit
WHEN: Friday, November 16th, 1:30 PM
WHERE: 220 Lawton. Corner of Lawton and Mundy, outside of Vilas School
IN CASE OF RAIN: At the gazebo at Mundy Park at Porfirio Diaz and Yandell
WHY: To discuss impact of new EPA rules on Asarco application for air permit
###
ACORN is the nation's largest community organization of low- and – moderate income families, with over 300,000 member families organized into 800 neighborhood chapters in 108 cities across the country. Since 1970 ACORN has taken action and won victories on issues of concern to our members, including better housing for first-time homebuyers and tenants, living wages for low-wage workers, more investment in our communities from banks and governments, and better public schools.
***
Nov. 16, Asarco
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 16, 2007
For additional information:
Teresa Montoya
Montoya PR
ASARCO’S RESPONSE TO
“ACORN ON NEW EPA AIR STANDARDS APPLIED TO ASARCO”
From Robert “Bob” Litle, El Paso Plant Manager
The same small group of opponents continues to use scare tactics and misinformation in their campaign against Asarco.
The facts are:
1. It is old news that the EPA is reviewing the current National Ambient Air Quality Standard (NAAQS) for lead for the entire country, not just El Paso. The NAAQS are air quality standards established to be protective of the most vulnerable populations – senior citizens and children.
2. El Paso’s air is already far better than the current NAAQS for lead. In fact, El Paso has been in attainment for lead since the mid-eighties.
3. Asarco’s allowable emissions are better than the current standard and better than ACORN’S numbers presented in their press release according to the most extensive air modeling ever completed which encompasses 30 miles of our plant including El Paso, Juarez, and New Mexico.
4. The scientific data shows that there will not be any negative health effects from Asarco’s allowable lead emissions.
***
Nov. 16, Acorn
EPA to Adopt New Lead Air Standards in 2008
Health professionals weigh in on new rules impact on
Asarco application for air quality permit
In a Follow up to today’s press conference outlining how new EPA rules will affect Asarco’s air permit application, we add the following comments:
As we know, the EPA is recommending a new, stricter standard that may be as low as .05 micrograms per cubic meter and as high as .20 micrograms per cubic meter. ASARCO claims that their modeling indicates that they will meet a new standard of .20 micrograms per cubic meter based on monthly averages. However, even if the EPA adopts a new standard of .20 micrograms per cubic meter, our region will risk being in non-attainment. This is because of
background lead concentrations in El Paso. According to ASARCO, those background concentrations are .07 micrograms per cubic meter. Once added to Asarco’s emissions, the total ambient lead in El Paso County would be .27 micrograms per cubic meter: we would not be in compliance and the County would once again be in non-attainment for the lead NAAQS.
For reference questions please call:
Neil Carman, Ph.D., Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club, 512-288-0042
Verónica Carbajal, Attorney, Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Inc. (TRLA), 915-585-5107
###
ACORN is the nation's largest community organization of low- and – moderate income families, with over 300,000 member families organized into 800 neighborhood chapters in 108 cities across the country. Since 1970 ACORN has taken action and won victories on issues of concern to our members, including better housing for first-time homebuyers and tenants, living wages for low-wage workers, more investment in our communities from banks and governments, and better public schools.
Acorn on New EPA Air Standards as Applied to Asarco
Newspaper Tree - El Paso,TX,USA
These new standards will directly impact Asarco's Air Permit Application. Below is a summary of these impacts over the next ten months. 1. ...
Silent on Asarco hazardous waste
Conspiracies of silence have for too long concealed Asarco's dismal health impact history. In an El Paso Times article, published Oct. 16, Asarco lawyers deny the city's accusation that Asarco smelted hazardous wastes. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) was silent during the controversy.
During Mayor Raymond Caballero's administration, his Environmental Task Force discovered a relevant internal memorandum at TCEQ's local office. The memorandum revealed that manifests of Asarco's alleged "recyclable" wastes under the TCEQ's jurisdiction had been impeached during the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) investigation.
The integrity of reports on Asarco's cargo manifests had been violated. When the EPA confronted the TCEQ employee responsible for inspecting Asarco's cargo manifests, he testified, on the advice of TCEQ's Austin attorneys, that he did not have the time or personnel to conduct a proper inspection. This striking disclosure presents unanswered questions about the quality, quantity, source etc., of Asarco's wastes.
This poses a more serious question. Was this failure over a long period of years a sign of a silent conspiracy?
Joe Piñón
People from the Sunland Park Grassroots environmental group, Colonias
Development Council, and others will gather for a photo against the
Regional Camino Real Landfill (DUMP), which is trying to renew a
ten-year permit.
This Dump is located on our water supply (the Rio Grande) just hundreds
of feet above the aquifer that feeds the Hueco Bolson at the Paso del
Norte; and right on an international border (despite the La Paz accord
(agreement) to not turn the border into a dump.)
The Dump is starting a methane-to-energy project. Only about 50% of the
gases coming off the dump are methane, we think -- the rest, only the
almighty apparently knows. Beneath the dirt at the dump lie toxic
waste recently disclosed by Phelps Dodge; and, loads of Zinc-stack
demolition debris from ASARCO (taken down during the Toxic-waste burning
years). The Dump accepts commercial waste from USA industries in Cd.
Juarez and El Paso and at least one person has seen a truck come here as
far away as Chicago...
Please come and stand with everyone.
Texas Railroad Commission rules allow the industry to self-monitor for NORM, and many operators are slow to decontaminate the radioactive residue because of its cost, industry insiders say. Furthermore, only two of nearly 200 operators registered with the commission in the Barnett Shale’s core counties — Key Energy Services and Devon Energy — have provided for such decontamination in the past two years."
"Statewide, 140 such sites were decontaminated from January 2005 to the present, according to documents obtained from the Department of State Health Services, which oversees decontamination of the state’s hottest radioactive waste."
"V. Enhanced pollution due to technological processing. Waste elements that are put into the waste heaps release toxins into the environment, in an affect called “technologically enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials” (TENORM) by Environmental Protection Agency. In other words, when you bring toxic metals, which are buried in the ground with no potential to harm human health, to the surface, put them in waste dumps exposed to the air, and subject them to various technological processes, there is a potential for adverse affects on human health. This is particularly true in Arizona where there are abundant deposits of radioactive metals and poisonous arsenic. In 1999, Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D. C. published a report on this uranium and radioactive chemicals in the “Copper Belt” of Southern Arizona. Following is an excerpt from that report:
Nearly all rocks, soils, thorium, radium, radioisotopes,naturally occurring radioactive purposefully or inadvertently technologically enhanced naturally as any naturally occurring human exposure has been activities (NAS, 1999). . . .
Levels in excess of the federal MCLs and state guidelines were found in groundwater and surface water samples, as well as soil and sediment samples at abandoned and active copper mines. TENORM exceedences were also found in groundwater at active and inactive copper mines. Uranium byproducts were recovered from heap leach dumps and in-situ operations that feed SX-EW and ion exchange circuits at several copper mines. Radioactivity was discovered in copper mineral processing waste streams. Elevated levels of radioactivity were also found to occur in the process solutions and process wastes."
For entire report, see: www.epa.gov/radiation/docs/tenorm/402-r-99-002.pdf
|
The public interest law firm Earthjustice announced today it is representing community groups in Illinois, New Mexico, Nevada, and Idaho in a lawsuit to prevent future problems in areas riddled with toxic mine sites."
http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/007/cleanup-tab-for-mines-should-not-fall-to-public.html
"El Paso Times - El Paso,TX,USA
By Erica Molina Johnson / El Paso Times County Commissioners decided not to weigh in as a body today on the Asarco debate. ..."
County opts to stay out of Asarco debate
WASHINGTON — A federal judge has refused to throw out a lawsuit filed by Asarco against its Mexican owners in a ruling that eventually could help the bankrupt U.S. mining and smelting company recover billions of dollars to help pay off environmental and asbestos-related claims, including hundreds of millions in claims from Washington state.
The lawsuit alleges Americas Mining, a subsidiary of Grupo Mexico, S.A. de C.V., "fraudulently" stripped Asarco LLC of its lucrative holding in two Peruvian copper mines just as Asarco was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
The decision by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Brownsville, Texas, clears the way for a trial next spring. In preparing for the trial, Asarco lawyers say they will question members of one of Mexico's wealthiest families, brothers German Larrea Mota-Velasco and Genaro Larrea Mota-Velasco, as part of the case.
The Larrea family controls Grupo Mexico, the largest Mexican mining company and the third-largest producer of copper in the world. The Larrea brothers have been executives of Grupo Mexico, Americas Mining and Asarco. The family is considered one of the 100 or so richest in Mexico, dubbed the "fantasticos" because of their economic, political and social clout.".....
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/PrintStory.pl?document_id=2003994345&zsection_id=2003925728&slug=asarco05&date=20071105