forgotten child of Niagara County

alwayswatching · Guru

RE: forgotten child of Niagara County

Date: Sun May 22 5:28 PM, 2005

should stay at the top!

alwayswatching · Guru

-- Edited by alwayswatching at 18:23, 2005-06-05

mike of the mountain · Senior Member

someone is fibbing -

anyway it probobly is not a good idea to burn that wood - if the trees soaked up some whatever and it gets burned then whatever is going to end up in the smoke .... and if you happen to breath the smoke .... whatever happens .

Scott Leffler · Guru

quote:
Originally posted by: mike of the mountain
"anyway it probobly is not a good idea to burn that wood - if the trees soaked up some whatever and it gets burned then whatever is going to end up in the smoke .... and if you happen to breath the smoke .... whatever happens . "

Looks like MotM and I agree on something. :)

alwayswatching · Guru

-- Edited by alwayswatching at 18:35, 2005-06-05

forgottenchild · Veteran Member

quote:
Originally posted by: alwayswatching
"To late, those trees were taken out in 2003, so they were burned this winter. But don't worry, I hear that there are more dead trees, that makes more fire wood!"

Bon fire anyone? I think this sleepy little town is starting to wake up.

alwayswatching · Guru

-- Edited by alwayswatching at 18:26, 2005-06-05

alwayswatching · Guru

-- Edited by alwayswatching at 18:27, 2005-06-05

NuclearLou · Senior Member

AW: Get photos. If you have a camera with date stamp--use it and take pictures over the next week(s). You'll need these. Show the demise of the trees. OR, take a still camera and a daily newspaper and a tripod. Take pics from the same spot at periods of time with news in shot. Shows days gone past...:*)

Hope it helps!

L

Date: Fri May 27 12:25 PM, 2005

Millions Being Squandered From Environmental Funds...
While Lockport Waits (Decades)For Clean-Up Money!

State taxpayers are paying for billions of dollars in environmental clean-up funds under two so-called "Environmental Bond Issues" but little of the money is filtering down to Lockport hazardous waste sites, brownfields, and dump clean-ups. Instead, residents are being given a long list of excuses by local, state, and national officials. Money raised with promises that it would go to clean-up polluted streams such as 18-mile Creek is diverted to the "restoration" of opera houses and historic theatre sites. Funding for removal of such hazards as the Flintkote Company ruins in Lockport go instead to "helping the handicapped", take kiddies on nature walks, and pay for endless "educational experiences" for school children.

Historic restoration buffs and educators have been among the most successful groups to steal the majority of the millions in environmental funds. The most recent environmental fund raid plans were announced Thursday, 2/11, when a Niagara Falls history group disclosed plans for a "Love Canal Interpretative Center." A "feasibility study" for a "museum" is to be financed from a $25,000 initial grant from a Niagara County $2.5-million environmental fund. That fund, is being depleted at the rate of about $500,000 a year by countless grants to everybody from Lions Clubs to individuals who have crafted "environmental proposals" so as to get a "piece of the action." Somewhat strangely, the Niagara County fund is being administered by employees out of the University of Buffalo.

The pilferage of environmental monies is by no means restricted to the Niagara County area. However, with so many brownfields needing clean-up on the Niagara Frontier, especially in Lockport, the results of the reallocation of environmental money to education and other "politically correct" movements is most noticeable.

While school children get crayons to draw pictures of green trees and blue lakes, there is no money to draw crews into 18-Mile Creek to do the dirty work of chemical, trash, and danger removal. The Buffalo News reports that Love Canal settlement funds are going to benefit "handicapped people getting wheelchairs, children are getting books and playgrounds are getting trees." But Lockport, and similar communities that host "brownfields" and hazardous waste endowments, are getting excuses.

Lockport suffers when environmental polluters close up business, declare bankruptcy, or just plain disappear and leave the community an endowment of dangerous buildings, decaying properties, drums of unknown chemicals, and the problems they didn't want to deal with. Finger-pointing then goes on, ad nauseam, as officials claim they can't find "responsible parties" or money. Nobody pays, nobody goes to jail, but Lockportians in common with other folks in similar communities suffer the visual, air, ground, and water pollution. Throughout, a new pollution is generated. "Information pollution" pours out of political offices trying to explain decades of inaction.

Tackling the real problems is an unglamorous job that most lack the willpower, resolve, or skill to solve. Most explanations are prefaced by phrases like, "We're waiting for...." Local officials appear overwhelmed with the problem with no effective public course of action defined. It's the "same old, same old" e.g., it's somebody else's problem to solve. But it's Lockport's problem to endure. (2/15/99)

Date: Fri Jun 3 4:57 AM, 2005

No such thing as STATE CLEANUP, only coverup. ALL sites.

Date: Fri Jun 3 5:00 AM, 2005

Fibbers, yes.

alwayswatching · Guru

-- Edited by alwayswatching at 18:36, 2005-06-05

alwayswatching · Veteran Member

Hey, a poster from my neck of the woods, welcome. The information is out in the hands of former employees, but they don't talk about it much. The cancer rates are very high along the undergroung water swales. Look at Alfred st, Vernon, Hammond pky and along the creek. The major problem with this town is that they just have no idea what went on here. Most of them don't want to know. I will offer 1 very important piece od advise: stop looking at arsenic! No question that arsenic is bad, but it's a walk in the park compared to the pesticided that are everywhere.

Lou, are you serious?

FMC has multiple subsidiary companies, but the one in Middleport produced pesticides. They produced farm machinery, deepwells, tanks, and food in other areas. Nice and handy to test your products on and then dispose of your waist by drilling into the bedrock and pumping it all underground. This was a huge facility in it's day, they not only produced pesticides, they had an extensive research and developement program. Former employees talk about the drilling and dumping, as well as underground facilities that required security clearance to enter. What went on in these underground areas? Could it have something to do with all the military contracts they had? It doesn't take much to figure out what the military was doing with pesticides produced at this plant. Unfortunatly, because of the military's involvement, full disclosure will never happen.

MM your tools did not contribute to this in any way. No need to be sorry. I would be very concerned for your customer, that is scary stuff.

Originally posted by: Dovey
" should be at the top...good imfo.."

I agree, this town has some big trouble ahead

FMC really needs to step up to the plate here...that leads us to who know where... and clean up this town. What can we do to help FC? AW

Christie Whitman will be giving a speach in buffalo about smart growth on May 17th. She must be in town for the community meetings in Middleport on the 19th. Nice that she was able to get some pr before she tells the people of Middleport that she switched side to help them. Anyone believe that? AW

The FMC spin machine has been working double time today. They put the plant manager on tv to say no one has elevated levels of arsenic in thier blood. Bold face lie FMC, shame on you. I know people who have extreemely high levels of arsenic and you have the results also. Averaging the numbers won't work with this poster. What about those young adults that died of leukemia in the 90s, they were in that elementary school in 1984. The same kids that tested high in the late 80s. Clean up your mess and stop doing the two-step. AW

alwayswatching · Veteran Member

A little history of the last week. People involved in the Middleport issues started getting phone calls from Ian Shearn of the NJ Stat Ledger. He wanted our oppinion on Christie Whitmans recent positon with FMC. All of us, being skeptical of interest from this far away land declined comment. The story ran without us, but gave some very bleak facts about out friendly little town. 12,000 tons of pesticides and 450 tons of arsenic were put in the ground our children play on. On Monday the story hit the AP and the buffalo tv and print news were everywhere. FMC put a nice spin on things and the school took a safe platform. But where was our local paper? At the car show of course. If the people in this town arent worthy of the JS&J why are they still collecting our money? A national figure has jumped sides to fluff FMCs feathers and we get the car show.

Now pay attention: This is your brain on chemicals!

Originally posted by: alwayswatching
"Here is one we can all join in with. Dovey, Lou, Speers, MC, NG and the rest. Song dedicated too forgottenchild Christie and FMC do your share Clean up, clean up, everyboby, everywhere. clean up, clean up, everybody do your share!"

It seems we are not the only blog talking about this: read on

Former Bush EPA Chief to Lobby for Questionable Chemical Company

Christine Todd Whitman, much criticized during her tenure as President Bush's head of the Environmental Protection Agency, is now going to lobby on behalf of a chemical company that has been subject to multiple EPA enforcement actions.

In a way, it's ironic. When Whitman spun for Bush, she was criticized for favoring corporate interests over individual interests, most notably with regard to air quality in Lower Manhattan following the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Both during her term as EPA chief and after leaving her post in 2003, Whitman has talked a good game -- spinning herself as a different kind of Republican. But now, given a chance to follow up on that post-administration promise, Whitman plans to spin ... for a corporate interest.
Whitman's first client is FMC Corp., a chemical company negotiating with the EPA over the cleanup of arsenic-contaminated soil at a factory near Buffalo, N.Y. Joining Whitman at her new firm is her chief of staff at the EPA, Eileen McGinnis, and Jane Kenny, an EPA administrator under Whitman.

Based in Philadelphia, FMC makes chemicals and pesticides around the world, generating revenues of about $2 billion a year. It is responsible for 136 Superfund sites across the country and has been subject to 47 EPA enforcement actions, according to the EPA. During the past seven years, it has spent more than $16.5 million on lobbying, mostly for environmental and Superfund issues, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

Eric Schaeffer, who worked under Whitman as director of EPA's office of regulatory enforcement, told the Newark Star-Ledger: "It's discouraging to see top officials move so quickly to the corporate side ... to nip at the heels of rules they just wrote."

alwayswatching · Veteran Member

***

Why is not surprising that Whitman would lobby on behalf of a chemical company with a questionable past?

Schaeffer, who resigned from his post in 2002, told the Star-Ledger that under Whitman, "there was too much inside corporate access to the EPA."

***

Whitman once suggested Bush was a "progressive" on the environment. But according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Bush administration oversaw more than 430 major environmental rollbacks.

"This administration has simply stopped enforcing the lawâ€”or rewritten the laws to accommodate polluters," Kennedy told Outside magazine during a November, 2004, "debate" with Whitman.

Whitman's response didn't contradict Kennedy's assessment on environmental rollbacks. Instead, she offered this from Bush's industry-friendly playbook: "We need to recognize that, while enforcement is important, we're beginning to get an environmental ethic in this country now. People are expecting good environmental behavior from the major companies."

That comment essentially repeated the Republican spin she gave in a 2003 interview with Gannett News Service. Discussing working with the business community, she said: "It's recognizing that if you let the private sector have a little flexibility in reaching the (clean air and water) goals, they'll probably get there faster."

It's a statement that makes Republican donors happy, but has never been supported by facts. No industry study has agreed with the Bush assessment that industry moves faster when facing voluntary, rather than government standards.

alwayswatching · Veteran Member

***

No matter how great her prowess as a lobbyist, nothing Whitman does now will compare to the spinning she did after the collapse of the World Trade Center.

On Sept. 18, 2001, Whitman issued this statement:

"Given the scope of the tragedy from last week, I am glad to reassure the people of New York and Washington, D.C., that their air is safe to breath[e] and their water is safe to drink," Whitman wrote. "We are very encouraged that the results from our monitoring of air quality and drinking water conditions in both New York and near the Pentagon show that the public in these areas is not being exposed to excessive levels of asbestos or other harmful substances."

But according to a 2003 report issued by the EPA's Office of Inspector General, EPA's Response to the World Trade Center Collapse: Challenges, Successes and Areas for Improvement: "(EPA) was not able to make health risk evaluations for exposures in the first couple of days because of the lack of monitoring data. For several pollutants of concern, sampling did not begin until September 16, and in many cases the results were not known until after the September 18 press release was issued."

EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley suggested in a 2003 interview with Lisa Myers of NBC News that the Whitman statements showed more interest in calming financial markets than accurately relating health risks:

MYERS: Was it misleading for EPA to tell the people of New York that their air was safe to breathe when they didn't have all the tests in yet?

TINSLEY: Yes. We think that people rely on EPA to give it accurate, complete information about environmental and human health aspects of its program.

MYERS: Do you have any idea why these press releases were made more optimistic and less cautionary?

TINSLEY: EPAâ€™s chief of staff at the time we did our work (McGinnis) said that her opinion was that it was important to get workers back to work and to have a positive impact on Wall Street. And that was what influenced the collaborative process.

MYERS: So eagerness to get workers back on Wall Street took precedence over giving complete environmental information?

TINSLEY: That would be what I would infer from the information that we received from the EPA employees.

posted by David R. Mark @ "http://jabbs.blogspot.com/2005/05/former-bush-epa-chief-to-lobby-for.html" "http://jabbs.blogspot.com/2005/05/former-bush-epa-chief-to-lobby-for.html" \l "comments" "http://www.blogger.com/email-post.g?blogID=7819881&postID=111569258952581392""http://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7819881&postID=111569258952581392&quickEdit=true"

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That map is showing a stream that has never been tested. Until this week it did not exist. It is directly north and down hill from FMC. Guess whats in the Middle?

Oh, that makes me feel safer, they have a fence! That should stop the banned pesticide DDT floating around when they dig it up. This is the 4th time this same area has been cleaned up, 1987, 99-2000, 2002 and now 2005! How many times does it get cleaned up before they admit they can't stop it. Hello, this is a school yard!

alwayswatching · Veteran Member

Agencies OK with FMC cleanup
By Bill Wolcott / wolcottb@gnnewspaper.com
Friday, May 20, 2005

MIDDLEPORT — Three government agencies and the Community Advisory Panel gave good grades to FMC’s plan to clean up and cap about 800 yards of land along the north railroad property this summer

The United Stated Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), the state Department of Health (DOH) and the advisory panel cited FMC’s cooperation

FMC’s proposed interim corrective measure, which will clean up contaminated soil and cap strips of land north and south of the tracks, is expected to begin July 1.

In addition to arsenic in the soil, tests have found lead, DDD, DDE and DDT at the site.

The railroad property is between the former fertilizer plant and the Royalton-Hartland School District campus.

Only a few residents attended the afternoon session at the Scout House.

“FMC is taking contamination out of the area,” said Charlotte M. Bethoney of the Department of Health. “We try to eliminate exposure that way. It will be restrictive access. There will be fence. They will not be allowed to get to it. They are removing contamination out the system and that satisfies our concern with exposure.”

Contact Bill Wolcott at (716) 439-9222, Ext.6246.
"http://www.lockportjournal.com/print_story.asp?id=1741"

Very good question Fc. Things will never be ok in this town again. If things were ok priceprotection would not exist.

Last fall we had what was left of a hurricane push throught the area. The village of middleport flooded. After the water receded the grass on the remediated properties along vernon street died. This was not new seed, but sod that had been in place for over a year. Now today I hear that the trees on those same lots are dieing. These home owners were under the impression that all they did was replace the dirt and trees, they sold the old trees for fire wood. What these residents are also finding is that they weren't back filled with dirt. These yards have multi level caps for yards. Why would they need a cap if the contamination was cleaned up? Could someone please explain this to me.

following is from 1/2002. I think it sums it up well:

Thanks for posting this . I missed the first letter. The Royalton-Hartland High School just did an FMC shut down test on Christmas break. It turns out that several air intakes were not shutting down properly and have been that way for many years. If FMC were truely a valued member of the community, wouldn't you think they would check on the school safety system to ensure the students safety.

The Buffalo News - EVERYBODY'S COLUMN

FMC plant is both safe, a good neighbor

1/9/2002

Comments in a recent letter to the editor may lead readers to have concerns about current operations at FMC Corp.'s plant in Middleport. The writer recalled a regrettable release of methyl isocyanate (MIC) that occurred in November 1984. During that incident, quick response by FMC and the Middleport Fire Department minimized serious health threats and environmental damage.

The numbers he cited, likely derived from inaccurate media reports, were quite overstated.

Yet in 1986, the plant ceased conducting chemical reactions that yielded ingredients used to make products. The last few drops of dangerous MIC remaining at the plant were destroyed that year. Since then, the plant only formulates, mixes and packages crop protection products that are sold to farmers around the world. FMC takes great pride in making these products safely and with no detrimental environmental impact.

Success for the plant's superb safety and environmental record is attributed to a dedicated and experienced work force, to management commitment to FMC's core values that place worker-safety and environmental protection equal to production quotas and to recognizing the plant's role in the community.

As a valued member of the Middleport community, the plant provides good-paying jobs, supports a strong tax base and contributes both resources and money to Royalton-Hartland school activities, village and canal tourism revitalization and various civic group functions.

By openly sharing information on plant activities with the community, FMC strives to assuage any concerns that neighbors may have about plant operations. An active Community Advisory Panel serves as a strong communication liaison where plant issues and community concerns are discussed and actions taken.

FMC wants its neighbors to know that the plant is safe. FMC strives to be a valued member of the Middleport community.

ROBERT WOJCIK
Environmental Manager
FMC Corp.
Middleport

Copyright © 1999 - 2002 The Buffalo NewsTM

Originally posted by: mike of the mountain
"someone is fibbing - anyway it probobly is not a good idea to burn that wood - if the trees soaked up some whatever and it gets burned then whatever is going to end up in the smoke .... and if you happen to breath the smoke .... whatever happens . "

To late, those trees were taken out in 2003, so they were burned this winter. But don't worry, I hear that there are more dead trees, that makes more fire wood!

quote:

Originally posted by: mike of the mountain
"someone is fibbing - anyway it probobly is not a good idea to burn that wood - if the trees soaked up some whatever and it gets burned then whatever is going to end up in the smoke .... and if you happen to breath the smoke .... whatever happens . "

To late, those trees were taken out in 2003, so they were burned this winter. But don't worry, I hear that there are more dead trees, that makes more fire wood!

Not to beat a dead horse or tree, but I checked the trees out today. Several of the new trees planted along the fence line, aka FMC property line, are dead. Nuts anyone?

Anonymous wrote:

No such thing as STATE CLEANUP, only coverup. ALL sites.

This is very true, it should be a crime. These state agencies are funded by us yet they protect the companies that caused this mess and not us. If you ask me something is wrong with this picture. Maybe we should start sending pictures of sick kids to our elected official, and explain how sorry the kids are about not being able to fork out campaign contrubutions.