May 15, 2004
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;-)Posted by jbholston at 02:37 PM
"Back in 2000 a Republican friend warned me that if I voted for Al
Gore and he won, the stock market would tank, we'd lose millions of
jobs, and our military would be totally overstretched. You know what?
I did vote for Gore, he did win, and I'll be damned if all those
things didn't come true!" -- James Carville
And, :-0 -- conspiracy theorists going nuts about Berg...
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May 13, 2004
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Outsourcing Polluters -- a Strange Tale of SuccessPosted by jbholston at 12:22 PM
Some of those with longer Colorado memories than mine will remember the story of the Summitville Gold Mine:
In 1984, Galactic Resources Limited renewed gold mining at the site using the cyanide heap leach method to remove gold from low-grade ore. Between 1984 and 1992, Galactic Resources produced gold worth an estimated $81 million. During this time, toxic mine waste that included copper, iron, manganese, zinc, aluminum, and cadmium was dumped into the headwaters of the Alamosa River, causing a massive fish kill in the Alamosa River and the Terrace Reservoir. Acid mine drainage, which occurs when sulfur-bearing rock is exposed to water, has affected the entire length of the river.
The Alamosa River provides irrigation water for ranchers and farmers in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado. The river and nearby wetlands provide important habitat for fish, ducks, and other wildlife, including the endangered whooping crane. Acid mine drainage and toxic mine waste have contaminated the river, killing fish and harming wildlife, possibly damaging crops, and ruining irrigation equipment worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
In 1992, Galactic Resources declared bankruptcy and abandoned the mine. Shortly afterwards, the State of Colorado asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for emergency help in preventing a cyanide-contaminated waste pond from overflowing a spillway. EPA responded quickly, placing the mine on the National Priorities List of federal Superfund sites. Cleanup has cost about $185 million so far. The costs of operating a water treatment plant on site, which may be necessary for decades to come, are estimated at $1.5 million annually.
In late 2000, the Department of Justice announced a settlement with Galactic's founder, financier, and operator, Robert M. Friedland, by which he committed to pay $27.8 million of the $185 million + clean-up costs:
Denver - The United States Department of Justice today announced that a settlement has been reached with Robert M. Friedland in the case, United States of America and the State of Colorado v. Robert M. Friedland, et al, for the environmental hazard at the Summitville Mine. This settlement involves Robert M. Friedland and others who were associated with him. The government continues to pursue other defendants named in the lawsuit.
The settlement calls for Mr. Friedland to pay the federal government and the State of Colorado $27,750,000 over the course of the next ten years. Friedland was the president at various times of three now bankrupt corporations, Summitville Consolidated Mining Company, Inc., Galactic Resources, Inc., and Galactic Resources, Limited, when they first started mining operations at Summitville. The proceeds of the settlement will be used to pay for ongoing and future cleanup actions at the site, and for restoration, replacement or acquisition of natural resources which were damaged by operations at the Summitville Mine. The first year's payment will total $5.25 million, with additional payments of $2.5 million a year for the remaining 9 years. Mr. Friedland has provided a letter of credit to ensure that all future payments will be made.
End of Friedman's career? Hardly.... He now runs a $1.45 billion mining conglomerate distributing Galactic's tactics around the developing world... (continued...)
Continue reading "Outsourcing Polluters -- a Strange Tale of Success"
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Contrarian Kerry Campaign POVPosted by jbholston at 10:08 AM
Kerry's doing exactly the right thing by avoiding Iraq as an topic right now.
I'm not thrilled to think this is inadvertent, though.
But fact is that the Bush Adminstration is imploding over the issue, without any help from the opposition.
Kerry would only make himself an easier target were he to talk more about all this now. The NYT reports that the GOP heavyweights are so desperate to change the subject and move the Iraq problem to someone else, that they're virtually pinning Berg's beheading on Kerry... (echoed and amplified immediately by Fox News and Rush, of course)
But soundbites are good; McCain as Secretary of Defense was a good one.
Of course, nothing Kerry says on any other topic is being heard. His campaign shouldn't assume later that America understands Kerry's health policy proposals, for example ....
But silence is OK as long as the Bushies continue to self-chum in the roiled waters...
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May 12, 2004
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Abu Ghraib; it's this guy's fault...Posted by jbholston at 01:28 PM
As the buck passes...
On Tuesday, as (Mr. Cambone, under secretary of defense for intelligence) jousted before the Senate Armed Services Committee with an Army general over the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, some of those strains were displayed. It was he, Mr. Cambone acknowledged, who gave high-level impetus to an overhaul of interrogation procedures at prisons in Iraq not long before the abuses took place.
Turns out this guy's day job is to coordinate the efforts of the 8 intelligence fiefdoms within Defense;
Twice a week, military officials say, Mr. Cambone convenes a conference call that includes the three-star generals and an admiral who run the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency. In theory, each of those chiefs reports to Mr. Rumsfeld and George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence; in practice, officials say, Mr. Cambone has made himself their most active overseer.
Sounds like he's become the go-to guy for the military to get the Pentagon's civilian point of view on everything to do with intelligence.
Which went wrong when it came to the tactical question of who handled interrogations in Iraqi prisons, and how...
And, since it's transpired that Guantanamo's (Gitmo) chief was the force behind the decision to squeeze Iraqi prisoners with harder earlier to gain intel ... what does that say about how it's been done secretly at Gitmo??
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