Olin Corp., a champ of a corporate citizen, is doing whatever it
can to thwart efforts force it to clean up the perchlorate plume it
created nearly two years ago, and our environmental enforcers are
acting like Barney Fife from Mayberry. They just can
’t be bothered.
Olin Corp., a champ of a corporate citizen, is doing whatever it can to thwart efforts force it to clean up the perchlorate plume it created nearly two years ago, and our environmental enforcers are acting like Barney Fife from Mayberry. They just can’t be bothered.
My mouth dropped when I read recently in The Dispatch the opinion of Santa Clara Valley Water District Senior Project Manager Tracy Hemmeter that clean-up of our poisoned wells would take decades. She is correct in her observation that people here in the South Valley want the perchlorate out of our water “sooner rather than later.” But we have been drinking this chemical for at least two years, and the best thing government officials can come up with is to have the stateRegional Water Quality Control Board issue a cleanup order to Olin. Next year.
This is the reason more and more of us have a deep-rooted distrust of American corporations. When they sell us something, they want payment at the checkout or, if it’s a business transaction they are gracious enough to allow 30 days. But when they maim us or poison our environment, they sit back on their diamond-crusted haunches and figure it’s someone else’s problem to fix.
Decades. Bloody decades! I’m damn near destroying my keyboard I’m pounding it so hard. And then, David Athey, the Regional Water Quality Board’s project manager for the site, said in the same article that it’s too early for his agency to order the company to clean up the plume. Maybe it will get around to issuing an order next year, he said.
Why do now what you can put off until next year, eh? Keep in mind, good water consumers, the plume has been spreading for more than two years already.
In the most darkly ironic statement since Bush announced “mission accomplished” in the war against Iraq, the company has the following to say about its safety and environmental efforts:
“Our Brass and Winchester divisions … have a separate Total Chemical Management program that addresses environmental performance. These ambitious programs are built on more than a decade of experience with the Responsible Care initiative. Responsible Care applies the practices of total quality management to health, safety and the environment – precisely measuring incidents, establishing reduction goals and timetables, and pursuing those goals through detailed action plans.”
Hooey.
Another quote, this time from an earnings report to the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission that isn’t so prominently displayed on its Web site (undoubtedly crafted by ad men):
“We have been named as defendant in a number of similar legal actions (including several proposed class actions) filed in 2003 and 2004 in federal and state court in San Jose, Calif., relating to alleged groundwater contamination arising from perchlorate use between 1956-96 by Olin and another, unrelated, defendant at an Olin facility in Morgan Hill. We are working with California state regulatory authorities to determine the scope of potential contamination. We are vigorously defending these suits and opposing any class certification.”
So this environmental pearl of a company doesn’t even take responsibility for what it has done to our local environment. The poison isn’t in our ground water; it’s alleged to be there. And instead of spending the money to clean it up, they are spending it “vigorously defending these suits.”
And Olin can afford to. Last year the company generated nearly $1.6 billion in revenue, according SEC filings. But it would rather pay their attorneys to beat down lawsuits than step up and fix the problem. And it is a problem.
The poison interferes with the uptake of thyroid hormones, which can lead to hypothyroidism. If this occurs in a woman early in pregnancy, the fetus is at risk for impaired physical and mental development, the severity of the impairment depending upon the degree of hypothyroidism, according to the National Institutes of Health. What isn’t known is how much of the stuff will trigger such an event. I’m not a health expert so I won’t weigh in on that debate, but to play Russian roulette with our health doesn’t seem like, how did Olin put it? Oh, yes, “Responsible Care.”
So the situation is that the company that caused the pollution is devoting its time to shucking the legal blame, while the government agencies charged with protecting our natural resources will get around to enforcing it manaña. Maybe.
