2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumA blast from the Clintons' past: Ohio children test positive for mercury (talk about immoral)
Last edited Mon Feb 8, 2016, 01:38 AM - Edit history (5)
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.
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
djean111
(14,255 posts)Skwmom
(12,685 posts)m-lekktor
(3,675 posts)Ferd Berfel
(3,687 posts)Divernan
(15,480 posts)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.
Read the whole article and especially the comments to get the full horror of this chapter of the Clintons 2-for-the-price-of-one co-presidency.
Divernan
(15,480 posts)From the OP's link:
Bill's appointee to head the EPA, Carol Browner, recused herself from the issue and passed the buck to Robert Sussman, her Deputy EPA Administrator.
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
The gift to Ohio that keeps on giving..
Recently a new ruling from the Ohio EPA allowed 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
I don't think Hillary will stop by East Liverpool asking for votes. They are familiar with Clinton campaign promises.
Skwmom
(12,685 posts)bigtree
(85,986 posts)...this has ZERO to do with Hillary Clinton.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)"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."
This is the same Carol Browner who, as chair of the League of Conversation Voters, decided to endorse Hillary, even though Bernie has a much better rating from that organization.
And the owner of Waste Technologies, Inc., Jackson Stephens, was a client of Hillary's law firm, and a major donor to Bill's 1992 campaign.
bigtree
(85,986 posts)...what a fucking joke. I can't believe the level of the inanity in these anti-Hillary screeds.
Hillary Clinton had ZERO to do with this. SMH.
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Divernan
(15,480 posts)"eb 24 · 11:59:49 AM
Well Clinton being good on these issues was one of the delusions I had left.
It's not even in trying to find dirt on Clintons that I find things that startle and sadden me about what went on then that I was blissfully unaware of, it's just researching issues.
For instance fights over labeling rBGH in dairy products caught my interest and the Clinton administration's part in the rBGH/Monsanto scam came as a shock...but the pages I went to had other old news that made it all worse. I saved some. For instance from '94:
Last week, the Clinton administration released its proposal for
reforming two of the nation's laws that govern pesticide residues in
food. The proposal would allow a certain amount of pesticide
residues in food products if "a reasonable certainty of no harm"
exists. The proposal covers both raw and processed foods.
The Clinton plan would scrap the Delaney Clause of the 1958 Food,
Drug and Cosmetic Act. Delaney said that no known carcinogens
would be allowed in processed foods. The proposal also amends the
Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).
Neither industry nor public interest groups like the Clinton plan.
"There were so many things like that catching me by surprise a decade later.
But OK so he pushed all these bad things and OK industry matters more than what we put in our bodies...but still thought he was good when it came to pollution and environmental protection. Now POOF goes that.
I was wondering how so many of us had all these fond, warm memories of those years, barring a few major exceptions. I think some of it is what the media covers and the fact that the internet was not what it has become today.
I know about many of bush's really bad moves on the environment or workers protection and so on because of the internet. I made a point of following him from the start to see if I could overcome my aversion to him and grew increasingly horrified by so many of his early actions that never made the news.
If we'd had all this in 1992 we might have had a different view of the Clinton years.
Still I wish my warm fuzzy memories were true. Sometimes reality bites."
TeeYiYi
(8,028 posts)...has turned out to be one hell of a disinfectant.
TYY
cali
(114,904 posts)Uncle Joe
(58,342 posts)Thanks for the thread, Skwmom.
bigtree
(85,986 posts)...is not Hillary Clinton.
Armstead
(47,803 posts)If they didn't they'd have split up long ago
dsc
(52,155 posts)This group certainly has no love for the Clinton era EPA but they are clear as to who approved the permit (the Bush EPA) and that Browner recused herself.
Skwmom
(12,685 posts)slipslidingaway
(21,210 posts)As Madeline Albright said, hundreds of thousands of dead children are worth the sanctions and destabilizing a country. Of course there is no connection between our actions and the hostility towards our country.
"... All senators are expected to inform themselves on the issues before they cast a vote. The evidence is overwhelming. It is hard to believe that Senator Clinton was unaware of the humanitarian crisis when she voted to continue the use of cluster bombs in cities and populated areas. A U.N. weapons commission called cluster bombs "weapons of indiscriminate effect." For years the international press reported the horrific consequences of cluster bombs on civilians. On April 10, 2003, for example, Asia Times described the carnage in Baghdad hospitals: "The absolute majority of patients are women and children, victims of shrapnel, and most of all, fragments of cluster bombs." Reporting from a hospital in Hillah, The Mirror, a British newspaper, became graphic: "Shrapnel peppered their bodies. Blackened the skin. Smashed heads. Tore limbs. A doctor reports that 'all the injuries you see were caused by cluster bombs. The majority of the victims were children who died because they were outside.'"
Even after wars subside, after treaties are signed, after belligerents return home, cluster bombs wreak havoc on civilian life. Up to 20 percent of the bomblets fail to detonate on the first round, only to become landmines that later explode on playgrounds and farmlands. Children are drawn to cluster bomb canisters, the deadly duds that look like beer cans or toys before they explode.....
...... The Clinton Sanctions Were Calamitous
Senator Clinton is currently trying to build a campaign around her experience in the White House, but she refuses to take responsibility for the most inhumane and disastrous foreign policy operation of the Clinton years: the infamous economic sanctions against Iraq. The sanctions, a colossal failure, formed the centerpiece of Clinton foreign policy. While the sanctions began with Bush senior in 1990, they were carried out and enforced with a vengeance by the Clinton Administration. The second war against Iraq actually began long before George Bush launched the shock-and-awe bombings in 2003. The Clinton sanctions afflicted the entire Iraqi population. Child mortality, as well as the death rate for the elderly and the chronically ill, skyrocketed. Malnutrition debilitated the country. Irrigation and sanitation systems collapsed. Common diseases multiplied. The Iraqi medical services, the most advanced medical system in the Mideast prior to the sanctions, fell apart. Farmers ran out of fertilizers and machine parts. Thousands of trained professionals fled the country. The sanctions, combined with surprise bombing raids, destroyed the entire infrastructure......"
As Madeline Albright said, hundreds of thousands of dead children are worth the sanctions and destabilizing a country ... but why do they hate us.
Skwmom
(12,685 posts)They are immoral.
slipslidingaway
(21,210 posts)some people think we can dictate our perceptions of freedom on other societies, but it does not always work and many times backfires.
The whole idea of supporting someone because they are a woman, a male, Catholic, gay or another race is repulsive. That allows people to separate everyone into narrow segments of society and is divisive. As a woman in her 60's I know the challenges that women face, but I do not agree with Albright and Clinton that we should have a special place in hell if we do not vote for Clinton.
Fairgo
(1,571 posts)They knew it would happen, and they did it anyway.
snagglepuss
(12,704 posts)how two-faced those two are. THey care only about money and power. That people believe in their con that they are caring benefactors is a testament to their craftiness.