Ask Hillary About This Tonight. I Dare You.
by Zwoof
Thu Jan 31, 2008 at 03:40:46 AM PST
Instead of duplicating the diary, I have added some new developments, and data. While I was writing the original piece on the history of this foul project, a new ruling from the Ohio EPAallowed this incinerator, located 1,100 feet from an elementary school, to accept even more hazardous waste (anthrax, radioactive waste, infectious medical waste and mixed hazardous waste from Hurricane Katrina) than the original permit that was shrouded in corruption and approved by the Clinton Administration
Clinton and Al Gore promised the residents of East Liverpool, Ohio that they would not allow this incinerator originally approved by Bush '41 to operate. However, a Clinton EPA appointee, recommended by his classmate Hillary Clinton, approved the permit.
This is a tangled tale of corporatism, broken promises and an environmental disaster waiting to happen.
It's long, so hang with me below the fold.
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Zwoof's diary :: ::
Background on East Liverpool, Ohio:
East Liverpool is a small town on the Ohio River in an economically depressed area. The incinerator was first proposed in 1979 and marketed to the community as a way to bring jobs to East Liverpool.
The WTI facility is one of the world's largest capacity hazardous waste incinerators. It sits on the banks of the Ohio River where Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia converge. It is in a flood plain and over a high-yielding aquifer, and was built on an already-polluted site owned by the Columbiana County Port Authority. There are homes within 320 feet of the facility and a 400-pupil elementary school on a hill just 1100 feet from, and slightly below, the stack.
The facility is in a valley that experiences air inversions, which trap the air and inhibit the normal rise of fog and pollution, as often as two of every three days. In short, it is about the worst place you could imagine siting a giant hazardous waste facility. Ohiocitizen.org
THE PLAYERS
Background on Jackson Stephans and Von Roll America:
By the most conservative estimates, the four partner companies that signed the incinerator's original permit application changed their names some nine times between 1981 and 1990. According to other estimates, the changes number more than forty... Mother Jones
Stephens Inc. and WTI According to the Ohio Attorney General's report on WTI in 1993: "It was 'Waste Technologies, Incorporated' in the late seventies, a group of companies owned by Jackson Stephens of Little Rock, Arkansas that became interested in the possibility of developing industrial waste incinerators which could be used to generate power.
Jackson Stephens raised at least $100,000 for Bill Clinton's first Presidential campaign (Source: Seattle Times, November 6, 1993)
Stephens "extended a $3.5 million line of credit to
campaign through the Worthen Bank, which is partly owned by the Stephens family. The Clinton campaign deposited up to $55 million in federal election funds in this bank." (Source: The Nation)
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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/31/21045/9822/688/446786