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Important points revealed during
the hearing: - Attorney Greer Goldman from the Department of Justice
present throughout the injunction hearings even though she had no "client"
to represent because Judge Frederick Stamp had dismissed the U.S. EPA
as a codefendant with WTI more than a week before the hearings
began.
- It appeared that the DOJ was present in the courtroom in
service for WTI. WTI was allowed to make use of DOJ Attorney/Client
Privilege. As the attorneys for WV entered various EPA documents into
evidence, the defendants raised objections. On at least one occasion,
WTI attorney Chuck Waterman was seen directing DOJ Attorney Greer
Goldman to use her "privilege", at which point she obeyed.
- Department
of Justice refused to authenticate many of EPA's own documents submitted
by the state of West Virginia during the trial. Documents the DOJ refused
to identify included an internal memo by Law Clerk Ignacio Arrazzola
suggesting that the ownership of WTI may have changed, and a memo written
by Assistant U.S. EPA Administrator Don Clay suggesting that top EPA
officials had made a "predetermined" decision on the WTI ownership issue
before looking at information regarding ownership that the company had
provided.
- Two veteran U.S. EPA regulations writers, William
Sanjour and Hugh Kaufman, were scheduled to appear on behalf of the
state of West Virginia. Kaufman and Sanjour have each worked with the
Agency for over twenty years and each was involved in helping to write
regulations for the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), which
governs hazardous waste in the United States. Kaufman was also an
investigator of hazardous waste sites. U.S. EPA employees who testified
on behalf of the incinerator company were allowed complete freedom in
their testimony and opinions, while EPA's Kaufman and Sanjour,
testifying against WTI, answered questions for approximately five minutes
apiece and were only allowed to answer questions with a simple "yes" or
"no".
- Martin Scott, Safety Manager at WTI, testified that he
has never checked into the safety records of any other hazardous waste
incinerators, nor has he ever visited or been on the site of any of the 17
currently operating hazardous waste incinerators. He further testified
that he was not aware of what accidents have occurred at other hazardous
waste incinerators.
- Carol Braverman, a toxicologist at U.S.
EPA admitted that WTI will violate its permitted emissions limits for lead
even with only one kiln operating and that if both planned incinerators
were to go online, "modifications" of some sort would have to be
engineered in order to reduce those emissions. She expressed no concern
for health problems with the excess lead, even for East Liverpool's
children, whom she referred to as "sensitive emissions receptors."
- Alfred Sigg, engineer for Von Roll, admitted that deadly dioxins
would, in fact, be created inside the WTI incinerator during the cooling
process and emitted. While no plans for testing levels of dioxins are
currently proposed in the trial burn plan, Sigg said that the newest
version of the trial burn plan now being negotiated with the EPA will call
for "several hours" of dioxin sampling. When asked if any further dioxin
sampling would be done, he said that, "further dioxin sampling would
be inconvenient to say the least."
- Dr. Paul
Chrostowski, engineer for Clement International, a consulting firm
hired by WTI, gave actual predictions for WTI's mercury emissions. He
said that WTI's waste stream would contain 200 to 5000 parts per million
of mercury. He further said that he expected air pollution control
equipment to remove between 80 and 90 per cent of that mercury from
smokestack emissions. Since WTI is permitted to dispose of 352 million
pounds of hazardous waste per year, Dr. Chrostowski's analysis means that
WTI will emit between 7,400 and 352,000 pounds of mercury per year. That
means that, even using "bestcase" figures, WTI will violate its permitted
limits on mercury emissions. WTI's permit allows for 2,560 pounds per
year of mercury emissions. Dr. Chrostowski also testified that he was
receiving $185.00 per hour for his testimony and had so far made
approximately $12,000 consulting for WTI. Lawyers for the State of West
Virginia entered a document into evidence also showing that Chrostowski's
parent company, ICF Kaiser Engineers, was an engineering contractor for
the incinerator firm. Chrostowski also said that WTI was the largest
capacity hazardous waste incinerator in the world to the best of his
knowledge.
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