EPA official ousted while fighting Dow

[RedEarth]

Source: Chicago Tribune

SAGINAW, Mich. - The battle over dioxin contamination in this economically stressed region had been raging for years when a top Bush administration official turned up the pressure on Dow Chemical to clean it up.

On Thursday, following months of internal bickering over Mary Gade's interactions with Dow, the administration forced her to quit as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Midwest office, based in Chicago.

Gade told the Tribune she resigned after two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson took away her powers as regional administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1.



Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/green/chi-epa-official-resigns_webmay02,0,4655733.story

[Seedersandleechers]

1. Loyalty to the big Corporations

Forget the people who have to live in that area. Forget about what we're doing to the earth. All for the sake of the almighty dollar.

[bemildred]

2. Bhopal Survivors Confront Dow

Rashida Bee and Champi Devi Shukla have come a long way from their home in Bhopal, India to attend Dow Chemical Corporation's annual shareholder meeting. But that's nothing compared to their ordeal over the last 19 years. Survivors of the 1984 Union Carbide disaster, the two women are in the US to confront Carbide's new owner, Dow Chemical, and demand justice. Eight days into an indefinite hunger strike Bee and Shukla showed up at Dow's May 8th Annual General Meeting in Midland, Michigan. But, instead of offers for relief and rehabilitation, they say that Dow executives openly lied to shareholders about the company's legal liabilities in Bhopal.

In a question-answer session at the annual shareholder meeting Bee asked company chairman, William Stavropoulos, why Dow accepted Union Carbide's asbestos liabilities in the US while refusing responsibility for Bhopal.

"His response was misleading to the shareholders," said Bee referring to Stavropoulos' claim that that Carbide's asbestos liabilities were pending but that there were no such pending liabilities against Union Carbide in Bhopal. Since 1986 both the Union Carbide Corporation and its former CEO, Warren Anderson, have been wanted in India on criminal charges. Neither Carbide nor Anderson have appeared in India to face trial.

"Actually, our chairman did misspeak," said Dow spokesperson John Musser. "We are fully aware that Union Carbide and Anderson were both named in the criminal charges in India. It wasn't said with malice, it was a mistake." According to Musser Dow has not yet made any formal statement to its shareholders about Stavropoulos's erroneous statement.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=6748

[nilram]

5. "Actually our chairman did misspeak"

" ... It wasn't said with malice, it was said with cowardice."

[Preston120]

3. How can the American Voters confront the EPA?

[DCKit]

4. My Mom went to buy a farm in that area in 1982....

had the water tested then moved back to Pennsylvania.

[nam78_two]

6. K&R

:grr:

[DeepModem Mom]

7. K&R