2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumOhio Children test postitive for mercury:Campaigning B.Clinton PROMISED toxic waste
Last edited Sat Mar 5, 2016, 06:41 PM - Edit history (5)
incinerator would never be allowed to operate.
WTI wanted to build America's largest toxic waste incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio. The incinerator is located 1,100 feet from an elementary school.
WTI was owned by Jackson Stephens, who donated $200,000 to Bush #1 to help this project along.
There were problems and the project was not going to be approved during the Bush #1 administration.
When Bush's ratings tanked during his bid for re-election, Stephens donated $100,000 to Clinton #1 as well as extending a 2 million line of credit to the DLC when they were tapped out. *See update 2 below.
Bill Clinton won and with some serious monkey business (a Hillary crony) at the EPA, the permit was approved.
President Clinton and Vice President Gore visited East Liverpool while campaigning for election in 1992; at that time, Mr. Clinton said that, if he were elected, WTI would never be allowed to operate. But the huge incinerator began burning hazardous waste in 1993. Mr. Clinton has not returned to East Liverpool since he became President in 1992.
WTI failed part of its test burn in 1993, releasing four times more mercury than allowed. Children at the elementary school were tested for mercury in their urine prior to WTI operation and again six months after the facility started burning as part of a state health study. In the first test, 69 percent of the children tested negative; the follow-up test found that nearly the same number tested positive.
U.S. EPA's own risk assessment of the facility found at least 27 possible accident scenarios that could threaten the lives of the children in the nearby elementary school. Despite these and other problems, the U.S. EPA issued WTI a full commercial operating license in 1997. The agency has also allowed the facility to nearly double the types of wastes it can burn.
When Clinton became president, he appointed Carol Browner head of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Ms. Browner then sent a small cadre of scientists to court in Cleveland, Ohio, to serve as expert witnesses on behalf of Waste Technologies, Inc. (WTI).
Because a memo to Ms. Browner from one of her staff was leaked to Greenpeace (a plaintiff in the lawsuit trying to shut down WTI), Ms. Browner's staff were forced to admit under oath that after Ms. Browner took office on January 20th, EPA conducted a secret risk assessment on the WTI incinerator. EPA's secret risk assessment revealed that the incinerator would be 1000 times more dangerous than EPA had estimated in the risk assessment they released to the public.
Hillary's Involvement:
The EPA Deputy Administrator Robert Sussman that eventually approved WTI's application was a law school classmate of both Bill and Hillary.
Sussman had previously acted as legal counsel to the Chemical Manufacturing Association, at a time when two of its biggest clients, Du Pont and BASF, were negotiating contracts to supply two-thirds of the waste to WTI." The Nation Magazine
The plant opponents cited Sussman's appointment to the EPA through the influence of first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose former law firm represented the original founder of Waste Technologies, Jackson Stephans.
Source Archives Cleveland Plain Dealer
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/2/24/462327/-
Note: East Liverpool is in an economically depressed community of conservative, hardworking essentially blue-collar people, poor people and people of color. All of East Liverpool's 500 black American residents live in the area of the incinerator.
http://www.greens.org/s-r/078/07-42.html
Update: What happened in later years when toxins were released:
The EPA found that the Heritage incinerator emitted gases that contained high levels of toxic chemicals into the air 195 times over 175 days from November 2010 through December 2014.
Those emissions happened through both mechanical failures and operators errors, according to the EPAs findings.
The toxins, which could have been different on different days, likely included dioxin, which can affect reproductive and fetal health; cadmium, which can cause kidney disease and fetal malformations; chromium, which can cause cancer; and others, including mercury, lead and PCBs the same toxins that once accumulated throughout Lake Erie.
WHAT WAS THE OUTCOME:
As required by Ohio EPA, Heritage took measures to prevent future incidents by intensifying screening, adding tighter restrictions on waste, performing more frequent inspections of solids within the secondary combustion chamber to remove and control buildup, redesigning the slag quench system, and cancelling problem waste streams. These measures will need to be added to the facilitys permit requirements.
In addition, Heritage agreed to pay a $34,000 civil penalty. A portion of the penalty, $6,800, will go to Ohio EPAs Clean Diesel School Bus Fund. This fund helps retrofit school buses with pollution control equipment to reduce particulate emissions from diesel fuel engines to protect students who ride buses.
WOW. A 34,000 penalty. That will teach them to "cut it out."
http://www.democraticunderground.com/12511169175
UPDATE: Another good link. http://www.oilempire.us/wti.html
As they say follow the money....
UPDATE 2: The original lead investor in the WTI project was billionaire Jackson Stephens. Although Stephens sold his proprietary interest in WTI in 1990, he arranged the financing for the incinerator through the Union Bank of Switzerland the same year.
Stephens was also the biggest financial backer of the Clinton-Gore campaign. The Little Rock investment banker had supported Clinton in each of his campaigns for governor, raised $100,000 in contributions for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, and extended a $3.5 million line of credit to the campaign through his bank. Hillary Rodham Clinton, while a partner at the Rose law firm in Little Rock, had represented a company controlled by the Stephens family.
http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/wti/jennl.html
Serious questions over whether the Incinerator should have ever been permitted were raised but never pursued.
daleanime
(17,796 posts)peacebird
(14,195 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)... and anyone with even of shred of objectivity would recognize that.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)how the Clintons use dishonesty to manipulate voters. Over and over.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)This is one of the things that sank Gore in 2000. No, it wasn't Nader. It was Clinton.
Anyone with a shred of comprehension would recognize that.
Uncle Joe
(58,349 posts)advancing Hillary's political career.
White House Civil War
Promised real power as Bill Clinton's vice president, Al Gore found he had a rival for that role: the First Lady. And when Hillary decided to run for the Senate, a tense competition got ugly. In an excerpt from her new book about the Clinton White House years, the author reveals how conflicting agendasthe triangle of a scandal-ridden lame-duck president, the wife he'd betrayed, and his designated successorsapped Gore's 2000 campaign as the bond between two couples dissolved into distrust, anger, and resentment.
(snip)
The turning point in Hillary's political life came on November 6, 1998, when New York senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan said he would not run for a fifth term. New York congressman Charles Rangel, who had already been pushing Hillary to enter the race, called that evening and said, "I sure hope you'll consider running, because I think you could win." Bill later wrote that he thought it "sounded like a pretty good idea," although Hillary said she told Rangel that she was "honored" but "not interested" and that she considered the idea "absurd." Yet the same day, Mandy Grunwald, a key adviser to Hillary, called the Moynihans to assess their reaction to a Senate bid by Hillary. They both thought it was a bad idea, because she didn't know the state and hadn't shown any interest in its issues or needs.
The Moynihan seat had in fact been on the Clintons' radar for months. Shortly after the midterm election, Hillary and her longtime adviser Harold Ickes signaled that interest by inviting a group of friends to have dinner and talk about her prospects. "It was a very pragmatic political discussion," recalled Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala. "I told her not to run, that she was an outsider, had never lived in New York. We talked about the Bobby Kennedy thing, and her response was that she was looking at the polls. She said that, based on Kennedy's experience [winning a Senate seat as a newcomer to the state in 1964, after he had served as attorney general for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson], New Yorkers were welcoming." By Bill's account, Hillary made up her mind only days after Moynihan announced his retirement. Once she had spent time "looking around and talking to people," she said, "Okay, I want to do it. So here we go."
(snip)
As a sitting president, Bill was in a unique position to boost his vice president's candidacy by scheduling White House events to highlight his achievements. But in 1999 those resources were diverted from Gore to Hillary "in a big way," said one member of the Gore team. "The Clintons come first. That was their basic framework." From June through December, Bill and Hillary appeared at 20 events under the aegis of the White House, including a celebration of Hillary's 52nd birthday, where in typical style Bill larded his tribute with statistics on welfare, poverty, crime, and economic growth as he touted his wife as a "genuine visionary" needed by the Senatethe ultimate confluence of the personal and political. During the same period, Gore was featured only at a White House Conference on Mental Healthwith Bill, Hillary, and Tipper.
In 1997, Hillary's office had 31 major speeches listed on the White House Web site. Two years later, that number had jumped to 86four times as many as those listed for her husband and Gore combined. She ran White House symposiums on equal pay for women, youth violence, and philanthropy, and she spoke out on a spectrum of domestic and foreign issues, such as foster care for teenagers, gun control, and the plight of refugees in Kosovo. She published 50 "Talking It Over" columns, syndicated in more than 100 newspapers, and she signed a contract to write An Invitation to the White House, a book on entertaining and décor.
With the Hillary and Gore campaigns revving up at the same time, the three-way tensions evident in the White House since 1993 became a more serious problem. "If she runs, we'd wish her well, but we sure could use her help," a top Gore aide had said back in February, when Hillary first publicly signaled her interest in the Senate race. Now Gore's campaign advisers began to worry that Hillary's candidacy would actually have an adverse effect on their candidate. "The implications for Gore are very serious," said New York's former Democratic governor Mario Cuomo. "She has to think very hard on this issue." Not only was Hillary unavailable as a campaigner, she was poaching top Democratic fund-raisers and donors who would normally concentrate on the vice president. She had already enlisted Syracuse native Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic Party's biggest rainmaker, who in the months to come cast a nationwide fund-raising net for her.
(snip)
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/11/clinton200711
LiberalArkie
(15,715 posts)buddies with the Clintons. Financed a lot of his governors race and his races for president. That part is known.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Do you have some facts that the author of the article ignored?
I really want to know what your thought is about the article because I have not heard of this story before. I am not from Ohio and don't know facts other than what are presented in the OP on this thread.
Thanks.
The article reads plain and straightforward to me.
The plant exists. People are being poisoned -- thanks to
the Clintons and their cronies.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Skwmom
(12,685 posts)politically to our advantage).
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)peacebird
(14,195 posts)Arazi
(6,829 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Let's go one at a time:
What was the Hg urine levels in the children? "Mercury poisoning" is a very specific malady requiring specific conditions be met. Merely testing positive is not the requirement for mercury poisoning.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)many health problems. First person authority. It is criminal.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Ain't no thing.
Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)There are no safe levels for either substance.
Buzz Clik
(38,437 posts)Nanjeanne
(4,950 posts)arcane1
(38,613 posts)a2liberal
(1,524 posts)just look up 2 posts
bbgrunt
(5,281 posts)Babel_17
(5,400 posts)Money buys influence. And sometimes that influence gives us scenarios like the one in the OP.
G********.
What a terrible story. If I were a parent there, I'd be going crazy.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)Response to Skwmom (Original post)
George II This message was self-deleted by its author.
zentrum
(9,865 posts)
..important post. It's outrageous how much vital information is suppressed by our MSM.
Wonder if Jeff Weaver of Bernie's campaign knows about this.
K&R.
NurseJackie
(42,862 posts)Skwmom
(12,685 posts)Voice for Peace
(13,141 posts)shadowmayor
(1,325 posts)And WE aren't in it. These people don't care about us, they don't give a fuck. Thanks to GC!!!
SoapBox
(18,791 posts)And do some 'splaining.
dcbuckeye
(79 posts)grasping at straws, it looks like. Look folks, once the African American community in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati goes to the polls, it will be over for Bernie.
But Bill Clinton killed everybody, don't you know?
ChairmanAgnostic
(28,017 posts)Yes, it was built 25 years ago, and still operates, hurts and injures kids.
Your smug attitude is why Hillary is going down.
Shame on you. If you have an iota of shame left.
Skwmom
(12,685 posts)Gwhittey
(1,377 posts)Response like that are common over at Sean Hannity forums. Yes I do read them !Sun Tzu!
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Same for his attorney, Hillary R. Clinton, who would become a board member at Walmart.
But few know the story about BCCI IN THE UNITED STATES. CIA director Bob Gates called it, "the Bank of Crooks and Criminals International."
valerief
(53,235 posts)same high interest rate, of course.
Dem2
(8,168 posts)I can't find proof of this. The KOS article did not show proof of their claim, and the below is the only Bill Clinton statement I can find regarding WTI.
I'd like to add just one further comment. We are not in power now, you haven't elected us yet and I wish that we could do more, but one of the things we ought to make sure we do is stiffen the regulations on the siting of these incinerators. I mean the federal government should not permit permitting of incinerators where you are going to have on-site storage of garbage in a flood plain...that should not be done. [You ought to have some jurisdiction at the state level about how close they get to schools and other things which are really troubling], but that's a national issue and we should not be doing that. And when we're in office we will have real meaningful national standards about the permitting of these sort of incinerators.
http://www.ohiocitizen.org/campaigns/wti/clintonstmt.html
There are claims that AL Gore had made a promise, but even that's not clear based on the statements at the link above. Do you have a link to where Bill Clinton made said promise?
Trust Buster
(7,299 posts)the cell phone providers (sarcasm).
peacebird
(14,195 posts)angstlessk
(11,862 posts)for disenfranchised Trump voters