Waste
Technologies Industries (WTI): East Liverpool, Ohio toxic waste incinerator Vice President Gore's first broken campaign promise
WTI incinerator on the Ohio River, the elementary school is 1,100 feet from the smokestack
"Jackson Stephens for President: dispense with the
middleman"
-- button printed by citizens in East Liverpool, Ohio area angry about WTI toxic waste incinerator financed by Mr. Stephens
and supported by the administrations of George H.W. Bush and William J. Clinton
related pages:
Hillary Clinton
worked for WTI's funder Jackson Stephens and was on the Board of Directors
of LaFarge toxic waste incinerator
Hillary Clinton helped incorporate WTI while at the Rose Law Firm and
served on the board of LaFarge Cement, which operates a cement kiln in
Alpena, Michigan on Lake Huron that switched from natural gas to burning
hazardous wastes (used motor oil, solvents) in the mid-1980s.
Clinton's Region 3 [mid-atlantic] EPA Administrator - Peter Kostmayer,
a democratic Congressman from Pennsylvania who lost his seat in 1992 (he'd
introduced legislation to ban new incinerators) - was fired for opposing
the Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed $1.5 billion 118 mile
"Corridor H" superhighway through the mountains of West Virginia
and the water discharge permit for the Parsons & Whittemore paper
pulp mill in Apple Grove, WV, on the Ohio River (the mill would be the
largest in the country, and would dump dioxin into the river). West Virginia
Governor Gaston Caperton and Senators Byrd and Rockefeller complained
to Clinton (the paper mill contributed to West Virginia politicians and
to the Democratic National Committee), who complained to EPA Administrator
Carol Browner, who fired Kostmayer.
Perhaps Bill Clinton could have urged neighbors of the WTI incinerator
not to inhale.
Gore's WTI timeline
"air pollution from waste incinerators typically includes dioxins,
furans, and pollutants like arsenic, cadmium, chlorobenzenes, chlorophenols,
chromium, cobalt, lead, mercury, PCBs, and sulfur dioxide. ... municipal
waste incinerators are now the most rapidly growing source of mercury
emissions into the atmosphere. .... [It] creates a new solid waste problem
that is in some ways worse than the one we have now."
-- Al Gore's book "Earth in the Balance," (1992), pp. 156-157
"The very idea
of putting WTI in a flood plain ... you know it's just unbelievable
to me ... I'll tell you this, a Clinton-Gore
Administration is going to give you an environmental presidency to deal
with these problems. We'll be on your side for a change instead of the
side of the garbage generators, the way [previous presidents] have been."
"if you had seen a Clinton-Gore administration in the past four years, you would not have seen this."
-- Vice Presidential candidate Al Gore, July 19, 1992, in Weirton, West Virginia
"Until all questions concerning compliance
with state and federal law have been answered, it doesn't make sense
to grant any permit,"
-- Vice President-elect Al Gore, December 7, 1992
WTI was turned on March 8, 1993 (when Gore was Vice President and his assistant Carol Browner was director of the Environmental Protection Agency) and continues to operate to this day.
Terri Swearingen
acceptance speech for the Goldman Environmental Prize, April 14, 1997
I am excited about this award, not just for personal reasons, but because I believe it vindicates the efforts of thousands and thousands of grass-roots activists in this country, and around the world, who work on environmental issues on a daily basis.
I am not a scientist or a Ph.D. I am a nurse and a housewife, but my most important credential is that I am a mother. In 1982, I was pregnant with our one and only child. That's when I first learned of plans to build one of the world's largest toxic waste incinerators in my community. When they began site preparation to begin building the incinerator in 1990, my life changed forever. I'd like to share with you some of the lessons I have learned from my experiences over the past seven years.
One of the main lessons I have learned from the WTI experience is that we are losing our democracy. How have I come to this sad realization? Democracy is defined by Merriam Webster as "government by the people, especially rule of the majority," and "the common people constituting the source of political authority." The definition of democracy no longer fits with the reality of what is happening in East Liverpool, Ohio. For one thing, it is on the record that the majority of people in the Ohio Valley do not want the WTI hazardous waste incinerator in their area, and they have been opposed to the project from its inception. Some of our elected officials have tried to help us, but the forces arrayed against us have been stronger than we or they had imagined. Public concerns and protests have been smothered with meaningless public hearings, voodoo risk assessment and slick legal maneuvering.
Government agencies that were set up to protect public health and the environment only do their job if it does not conflict with corporate interests. Our current reality is that we live in a "wealthocracy" big money simply gets what it wants. In this wealthocracy, we see three dynamics at play: corporations versus the planet, the government versus the people, and corporate consultants or "experts" versus common sense. In the case of WTI, we have seen all three.
The second lesson I have learned ties directly to the first, and that is that corporations can control the highest office in the land. When Bill Clinton and Al Gore came to the Ohio Valley, they called the siting of the WTI hazardous waste incinerator next door to a 400 student elementary school, in the middle of an impoverished Appalachian neighborhood, immediately on the bank of the Ohio River in a flood plain an "UNBELIEVABLE IDEA." They said we ought to have control over where these things are located. They even went so far as to say they would stop it. But then they didn't! What has been revealed in all this is that there are forces running this country that are far more powerful than the President and the Vice President. This country trumpets to the world how democratic it is, but it's funny that I come from a community that our President dare not visit because he cannot witness first hand the injustice which he has allowed in the interest of a multinational corporation, Von Roll of Switzerland. And the Union Bank of Switzerland. And Jackson Stephens, a private investment banker from Arkansas. These forces are far more relevant to our little town than the President of the United States! And he is the one who made it that way. He has chosen that path. We didn't choose it for him. We begged him to come to East Liverpool, but he refused. We begged the head of EPA to come, but she refused. She hides behind the clever maneuvering of lawyers and consultants who obscure the dangers of the reckless siting of this facility with theoretical risk assessments.
I always thought of the President of the United States as an all-powerful person, who could even, if necessary, launch a war to protect his nation's people. But in the case of WTI, we have this peculiar situation where the President dare not come to East Liverpool, Ohio. It may be the one place in the whole of this country, maybe even the world, where he cannot go. He cannot go to East Liverpool to see for himself what he has allowed. He cannot go to East Liverpool to see with his own eyes where this incinerator is operating. We know that if he came to East Liverpool to see it for himself, he would not be able to say that it is okay. We know that he would never have allowed his own daughter, Chelsea, to go to school in the shadow of this toxic waste incinerator. And that's precisely why he dare not come to East Liverpool. He knows that it is wrong. He knows that it is unacceptable. The decision to build the incinerator there was political, and the decision to allow it to operate, despite the stupidity of its location, is political. The buck stops with President Clinton. No child should have to go to school 1,000 feet from a hazardous waste facility, and no president should allow it. He cannot shove off the responsibility to a bureaucracy. I believe you cannot have power without responsibility.
The third thing that I have learned from this situation, which ties in with the first two, is that we have to reappraise what expertise is and who qualifies as an expert. There are two kinds of experts. There are the experts who are working in the corporate interest, who often serve to obscure the obvious and challenge common sense; and there are experts and non-experts who are working in the public interest. From my experience, I am distrusting more and more the professional experts, not because they are not clever, but because they do not ask the right questions. And that's the difference between being clever and being wise. Einstein said, "A clever person solves a problem; a wise person avoids it." This lesson is extremely relevant to the nation, and to other countries as well, especially in developing economies. We have learned that the difference between being clever and being wise is the difference between working at the front end of the problem or working at the back end. Government that truly represents the best interest of its people must not be seduced by corporations that work at the back end of the problem with chemicals, pesticides, incinerators, air pollution control equipment, etc.
The corporate value system is threatening our health, our planet and our very existence. As my good friend, Dr. Paul Connett, says "WE ARE LIVING ON THIS PLANET AS IF WE HAD ANOTHER ONE TO GO TO." We have to change the way we look at the world. We must change our thinking and our attitude. This is so important. We MUST change the value system. We have to live on this planet assuming that we do not have another one to go to! We must get to the front end of problems so that we avoid the mistakes of the past. Thinking about our planet in this way puts a whole new perspective on what we do and how we act.
For example, if we are dealing with issues of agriculture, we need to be thinking about sustainable agriculture with low chemical input. If we are looking at energy, we need to look at solar energy, energy that is sustainable. If we are discussing transportation, we should be looking at ways of designing cities to avoid the use of cars. And when it comes to hazardous waste, we should [be] talking about clean production, not siting new incinerators. We should be trying to get ahead of the curve. People at the grass-roots level get taught this lesson the hard way they get poisoned by back-end thinking. They learn that we have to shift to front-end solutions if we are to save our communities and our planet.
Citizens who are working in this arena people who are battling to stop new dump sites or incinerator proposals, people who are risking their lives to prevent the destruction of rainforests or working to ban the industrial uses of chlorine and PVC plastics are often labeled obstructionists and anti-progress. But we actually represent progress not technological progress, but social progress. We have become the real experts, not because of our title or the university we attended, but because we have been threatened and we have a different way of seeing the world. We know what is at stake. We have been forced to educate ourselves, and the final exam represents our children's future. We know we have to ace the test because when it comes to our children, we cannot afford to fail.
Because of this, we approach the problem with common sense and with passion. We don't buy into the notion that all it takes is better regulations and standards, better air pollution control devices and more bells and whistles. We don't believe that technology will solve all of our problems. We know that we must get to the front end of the problems, and that prevention is what is needed. We are leading the way to survival in the 21st century. Our planet cannot sustain a "throw-away society." In order to survive, we have to be wise, not just clever.
This is why, ultimately, it is so disastrous that there are people who think that they've solved the WTI problem with more technology. You cannot patch up an injustice an unjust situation with technology. The developers behind WTI made a fundamental mistake in the beginning by building the incinerator next door to an elementary school and in the middle of a neighborhood. This is a violation of human rights and common decency. As Martin Luther King said, "INJUSTICE ANYWHERE IS INJUSTICE EVERYWHERE."
Even after seeing so much abuse of the system that I have believed in, I still hold on to the slender hope that my government could once again return to representing citizens like me rather than rapacious corporate interests.
If they do, then perhaps there is a future for our species; if they don't, we are doomed.
www.nacce.org/1998/swearingen.html
The Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness
Excerpts from a recent interview with Terri Swearingen, of Chester WV, 1997 winner of the Goldman Prize, the environmental equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Earlier this week, Vice-President-elect Al Gore weighed in heavily
on the side of citizens fighting the WTI incinerator in East
Liverpool, Ohio. On Monday Mr. Gore announced that he and 5
other senators have asked the General Accounting Office
(GAO)--an investigative arm of the Congress--to make a thorough
examination of WTI, to answer nagging questions about the safety
of its huge incinerator, and about the illegality of permits it received
from the Bush-Quayle EPA [U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency] for construction and operation. (See RHWN #287.) Mr.
Gore said the new Clinton-Gore administration will not give WTI a
test burn permit until all questions have been satisfactorily
answered.
.... In the case of WTI, there were several compelling reasons that EPA could have used to deny WTI a permit for commercial operation. The East Liverpool incinerator failed two parts of its test burn--it failed to destroy carbon tetrachloride (a known human carcinogen) with the required 99.99 percent efficiency, and it emitted more than three times as much mercury as is allowable into the local community during the test burn. Despite these documented failures, EPA has allowed WTI to begin commercial operation.
Everyone who's seen this facility - even top public health experts - say it's the worst place for an incinerator, parallel to designing transport for Death Valley around ice skates. Even the EPA's regional director, Valdas Adamkus, who permitted this incinerator, admitted that WTI should never have built it where it is. ....
Remember your basic physics lesson - that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. WTI is saying it's taking toxic waste from other facilities and destroying it. Whenever they do burn waste, it's not really destroyed - it's reduced to ash in a more concentrated form. All this dangerous dioxin is coming out of the stack. So the government says, "You have to reduce your dioxin emissions? How do they do that? By putting pollution control devices on the machinery. But the dioxin has to go somewhere, so it ends up in the ash. So you're not really reducing the pollution, you're shifting it to another place.
People have to understand that. In a lot of cases, it has changed to something more toxic than what was put into the incinerator to be destroyed in the first place. Plus you have all this ash, where roughly 50 percent of what's brought in has to be hauled off site and deposited in a toxic waste landfill. It's got all of these heavy metals, including everything all those devices pulled out of the air.
OPPONENTS OF A HAZARDOUS WASTE INCINERATOR on the Ohio River believed they had cause for celebration when Vice President-elect Al Gore vowed in December that the Clinton administration would block its operation, requesting a General Accounting Office (GAO) investigation of the facility. Yet the incinerator began a test burn on March 8, and President Bill Clinton announced that he will not oppose commercial operation of the East Liverpool, Ohio plant.
Throughout the Clinton-Gore campaign, the ticket had made significant statements in opposition to the incinerator. In response to questions posed to presidential candidates by the League of Conservation Voters in December 1991, Clinton said, "I am in support of a moratorium on the construction of new garbage and hazardous waste incinerators." And on July 19, in Weirton, West Virginia, a stop on Clinton's first post-convention bus tour, Gore said that the Ohio incinerator was "deserving of a full-scale investigation," claiming, "if you had seen a Clinton-Gore administration in the past four years, you would not have seen this."
www.motherjones.com/news/feature/1993/11/davis.html
MotherJones ND93: Where are you Al?
News: Our "Earth in the Balance" Vice President is unable--or
unwilling--to stop even as dangerous a project as the Ohio incinerator.
By L. J. Davis
November/December 1993 Issue
With a rated burning capacity of sixty thousand tons a year and permission
to nearly triple that intake with new construction, the hazardous-waste
incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio, is the largest such facility in
the world, the largest in the country, or the second-largest in the
country, depending on whom you ask. Despite its size, the incinerator
is situated smack in the middle of East Liverpool, a small, depressed,
industrial city of fewer than fourteen thousand people, located almost
at the precise point where Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania meet.
Last December, Vice President-elect Al Gore made a highly specific promise
that the incinerator (which was built by a partnership called Waste
Technologies Industries) would not be permitted to operate until a full
investigation had been completed, but he was either blowing smoke or
else soon had dust thrown in his eyes. Once in office, the Clinton administration
began the promised investigation but allowed the incinerator to operate
anyway; it is operating as I write.
A YEAR AGO, many people in the Ohio Valley figured they had good reason to celebrate.
The man just elected vice president of the United States had run as a critic of the massive toxic-waste burner threatening to spew hazardous chemicals into the Ohio town of East Liverpool and outlying areas.
Campaigning in the region, Al Gore - the author of the pro-environment book "Earth in the Balance" - had denounced the incinerator. So had Bill Clinton.
The Waste Technologies Industries plant - one of the largest-capacity toxic-waste burners anywhere - was set to operate in a residential area just a few hundred yards from an elementary school. WTI would emit large quantities of lead and mercury (substances destructive to young nervous systems), and poisons such as dioxin.
Widely hailed as the greenest national candidate, Al Gore used the WTI issue to appeal for environmental votes last fall. But two months after he became vice president, Gore began to hedge - speaking of federal obligations to WTI's investors.
The Clinton administration could have nullified WTI's test permit right after Inauguration Day. Instead, in mid-March, the Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would not bar the toxic burner's opening.
WTI is now operating alongside the upper Ohio River, with grim implications for public health.
As journalist Liane Clorfene-Casten wrote in The Nation magazine: "Any release from the site, whether as a result of accident, explosion or misconduct, will likely wind up in the river - a source of drinking water for millions living in towns down-river." Even WTI's routine toxic emissions are endangering the food chain - especially cattle and milk in the area.
The facility has already violated federal EPA regulations, including limits on mercury releases.
After Clinton and Gore made so much noise opposing the WTI incinerator in 1992, why the turnaround? That question has not been addressed by national news outlets.
Part of the untold story involves a financier named Jackson Stephens, who got into the toxic-incinerator business in 1980 when he founded WTI - and went on to arrange financing for the East Liverpool project. Though he sold his share of the company 10 years later, his reputation is riding on the WTI facility.
Truly bipartisan, Stephens donated $ 100,000 to the Republican Party in 1988. He raised the same amount for Bill Clinton in 1992.
In fact, Jackson Stephens - the chair of the huge Stephens Inc. investment banking firm based in Little Rock - was a major underwriter of Clinton's presidential candidacy. As The Nation reported in its Sept. 27 issue, Stephens "extended a $ 3.5 million line of credit to his campaign through the Worthen Bank, which is partly owned by the Stephens family. The Clinton campaign deposited up to $ 55 million in federal election funds in this bank."
The magazine added: "The conflicts of interest don't stop there. The man now ultimately responsible for EPA decisions on WTI is Deputy Administrator Robert Sussman, a law school classmate of Bill and Hillary Clinton. Sussman 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."
A computerized search of major U.S. newspapers reveals little focus on those conflicts of interest - except in The Cleveland Plain Dealer. Four months ago, for instance, The Plain Dealer reported that 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."
News coverage was profuse last spring when the federal EPA announced an 18-month moratorium on new incinerators for hazardous wastes. But "the freeze," riddled with loopholes, has not caused the EPA to revoke or deny a single permit.
These days, the green luster is fading from Al Gore and his boss. Pointing to retreats on Northwest forests, wetlands, the Everglades, energy taxes and auto-efficiency standards, the Greenwire news service noted recently: "Those most alarmed by Clinton-Gore policy these days may be the enviros."
One of the alarmed activists is Terri Swearingen, a registered nurse who lives in West Virginia just across the Ohio River from WTI. Outraged at Al Gore's betrayal, Swearingen is organizing a mass return of "Earth in the Balance" to its best-selling author. She asks readers to send her the book for forwarding en masse to Vice President Gore.
It's a unique way of communicating to an elected official guilty of hypocrisy: Throw the book at him.
www.mindspring.com/~montepaulsen/9308granola.htm - the "Granola
Commandos" - Greenpeace versus toxic waste incineration in cement
kilns - a mention of Hillary Clinton's ties to the hazardous waste incineration
industry (but she claims to care about health care)
this article no longer on-line but it is archived at
www.oilempire.us/hillary.html
www.umich.edu/~snre492/mcormick.html
Environmental Justice Case Study: Waste Technologies Industries, Inc. and the Fight Against A Hazardous Waste Incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio
Eight years ago vice-president elect Al Gore made a promise. He promised to shut down the WTI, no not the WTO, Al Gore was pledging to put an end to the WTI - the Waste Technologies Industries which is the world's largest incinerator. Eight years on, local residents are still battling to have the toxic incinerator in East Liverpool, Ohio shutdown. The incinerator burns hazardous waste next to an elementary school and serious questions have been raised about the excessive emissions of dioxins which is pumping lead and mercury into the air. The WTI incinerator burns about 70,000 tons of hazardous waste each year. This time around, Sierra Club endorsed Al Gore, is making no more promises to end this environmental and public health threat.
Guest:
Terry Sweringen, a nurse from West Virginia who lives 2 miles from the incinerator and has been arrested nine times for protesting the incinerator at the White House, in East Liverpool and other places.
December 1993
Multinational Monitor
WASTE TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRIES :
Burning Up the Myth of Al Gore
IN DECEMBER 1992, Vice-President-elect Al Gore promised that one of
the world’s largest incinerators, the one built by Waste Technology
Industries in East Liverpool, Ohio, would not be permitted to operate
until a full investigation of the facility had been completed.
Then, earlier this year, Al Gore and his boss, Bill Clinton, decided
to conduct the study, but broke Al’s promise and allowed the incinerator
to operate while the study was in progress.
The incinerator, which is permitted to emit lead, mercury and hundreds
of other compounds, is located only 400 yards from an elementary school.
"The WTI facility is the worst siting decision I have seen in my
25 years of practice in public health," said public health expert
Dr. David Ozonoff. "Locating a major hazardous waste incinerator
300 feet from the nearest residence and 1,100 feet from an elementary
school with 400 children amounts to administrative incompetence if not
malfeasance of office and does violence to common sense."
"It is a matter of fact that the likelihood of an accident resulting
in a sudden release of toxic fumes into the atmosphere is high,"
Ozonoff said. "This carries a high potential for genuine and overwhelming
catastrophe."
Despite herculean citizen protests, legal challenges from surrounding
state governments (the facility sits on the border of Pennsylvania,
Ohio and West Virginia) and Al Gore’s promises, one of the most
dangerous incinerators in the country is up, running and polluting.
Why did Al Gore break his promise not to allow the incinerator to operate
until a full investigation had been completed? One reason may be two
men named Jackson Stephens
and Robert Sussman.
Stephens is chair of Stephens Inc., a giant Little Rock-based investment
firm. He was a major underwriter of Bill Clinton’s presidential
campaign. Stephens Inc. was one of the original partners in the company
that developed the East Liverpool incinerator. Earlier this year, the
Nation magazine reported that Stephens "extended a $3.5 million
line of credit to [Clinton’s] campaign through the Worthen Bank,
which is partly owned by the Stephens family. The Clinton campaign deposited
up to $55 million in federal election funds in this bank." "The
man now ultimately responsible for EPA decisions on WTI is Deputy Administrator
Robert Sussman, a law school classmate of Bill and Hillary Clinton,"
the Nation reported. "Sussman previously acted as legal counsel
to the Chemical Manufacturers Association, at a time when two of its
biggest clients, DuPont and BASF , were negotiating contracts to supply
two-thirds of the waste to WTI."
Terri Swearingen, a registered nurse who lives in West Virginia, just
across the border from the WTI facility, is justifiably outraged by
Al Gore’s betrayal. She has led the fight to shut down the WTI
incinerator. She believes the incinerator is illegal and unsafe.
Earlier this year, Swearingen organized a mass return of Gore’s
best-selling "Earth in the Balance" back to Gore. (To participate
in this ongoing protest, send Gore’s book, with your own message
inscribed to: Terri Swearingen, RD 1, Box 365, Chester, West Virginia
26034.)
Pittsburgh City Paper
July 21-27, 1993
"WTI: The election connection"
Observers called it the most ingenious protest they had ever seen.
At noon
on Monday, May 17.[1993] in Washington, D.C., a yellow truck pulled
up outside the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue and stopped in the
middle of the street. Within a minute, a metal stack had been erected
on the top of the truck and 50 protestors had handcuffed themselves
together around it, some to the axle underneath, others with their hands
thrust through the sides of the truck, literally, then cuffed to blocks
of concrete.
The protestors blocked traffic for six hours that afternoon while
D.C. police tried to extricate them from their mobile fortress. As smoke
rose from the stack of the mock toxic waste incinerator, other protestors
on the sidewalk erected a banner facing the White House that read "You
promised" and chanted, "If you can't stop WTl, how on earth
can you save the planet?"
WTI (Waste Technologies Industries), the nation's newest toxic waste
incinerator, began operating this year in East Liverpool, 30 miles upwind
from Pittsburgh. The 50 arrested protestors included actor Martin Sheen
(whose mother-in-law lives in northeastern Ohio) and residents of the
community surrounding the Ohio River valley town. The taunts were aimed
at Al Gore, who promised that the Clinton administration would shut
down WTI. And the smoke pouring from the top of the stack unintentionally
symbolized the smoke screen behind which the Clinton administration
has betrayed the trust of these people, who believed Clinton and Gore
would keep their word.
The protest, which attracted national media attention, was intended
to convince Clinton and Gore to fulfill the promise they made last December
6 to temporarily shut down WTI and launch a full investigation into
allegations of permitting violations and health risks to the local community.
The incinerator sits on the banks of the Ohio River within the flood
plain, 400 feet from a dense residential neighborhood and 1,100 feet
from an elementary school, in an area prone to air inversions that will
trap toxic pollutants in the valley.
Clinton and Gore gave the protestors no points for creativity, however.
Not only have they taken no action against WTI, but they allowed the
U.S. EPA to issue a permit for limited commercial operation on July
8. Some critics count this as simply another example of Clinton's political
indecisiveness. But to local residents who can look out their windows
and see the plume of toxins released from the incinerator's stack, it
is literally a deadly betrayal.
Unanswered Questions
A year ago, Clinton and Gore sang a very different tune. In July,
1992, when they visited Weirton, West Virginia, on a campaign bus tour,
Gore freely spoke out against the WTI incinerator. "The very idea
of putting WTI in a flood plain ... you know it's just unbelievable
to me," Gore told the crowd. "I'll tell you this, a Clinton-Gore
Administration is going to give you an environmental presidency to deal
with these problems. We'll be on your side for a change instead of the
side of the garbage generators, the way [previous presidents] have been."
Local opponents were elated. "We felt that this ushered in a
new era in national politics," said Alonzo Spencer, an East Liverpool
resident and president of Save Our County. "People here who were
never involved in politics became active in campaigning for Clinton
and Gore."
Gore's announcement on December 7 [92] seemed to verify his commitment
to stop the incinerator. "Until all questions concerning compliance
with state and federal law have been answered, it doesn't make sense
to grant any permit," said the Vice President-elect in a press
release.
Among the unanswered questions addressed by Gore: Was the permit issued
legally by the EPA?
Is the incinerator safe for the environment and the health of the
local residents? After years of name changes and buy-outs among the
original owners, who now owns the facility, and who is responsible for
its operation? These were questions that incinerator opponents had been
raising for years. Finally, they thought, someone was listening.
By March, however, WTI was burning toxic waste to test the facility,
and Clinton and Gore, having answered none of these questions, had done
nothing to stop WTI. Instead, they deferred to legal obligations from
eleventh hour decisions made during Bush's last days, ostensibly preventing
them from taking action.
"First of all," said Gore at a "town meeting"
on March 10 in Omaha, Nebraska, "the decisions relating to this
particular permit were made principally and almost exclusively during
the last administration and that incurred certain legal obligations
toward the company that had invested tens of millions of dollars."
After only two months in office, the environmentalist Vice-President
was waxing apologetic for the hazardous waste industry.
What happened? Did Clinton and Gore change their minds? Or are they
really fulfilling legal obligations? Environmental consultant Lynn Moorer
doesn't think so. "From the moment Gore and Clinton took their
hands off the Bible, they could have revoked WTI's permit," she
said.
In a letter to Gore, Moorer cited federal laws and regulations that
grant the U.S. EPA authority to revoke or suspend a hazardous waste
permit at their discretion, at any time in the permitting process. "With
respect to the handling of WTl," said Moorer, "the Clinton
EPA is no different from the Bush EPA. They both blink at blatant violations
of federal laws and regulations."
Follow the Money
On some points then, Clinton and Gore appear to have changed their
minds. The question that WTl opponents are asking is not >why did
they change their minds but who changed their minds?< Opponents have
long referred to a driving force that has allowed WTI to begin operating
despite over a decade of legal challenge and public protest. Hugh Kaufman,
Assistant Director of the U.S. EPA Hazardous Site Control Division and
whistle-blower of the Love Canal case, has worked with opponents in
investigating WTI and helped them identify this force. "Follow
the money," he told them.
When they did, they discovered that the same man who founded
the WTI project was also the largest financial backer of Bill Clinton's
[92] presidential campaign. The money trail leads all the way to Little
Rock, Arkansas, to the doorstep of billionaire investment banker Jackson
Stephens, whose investment firm, Stephens, Inc., is one of the wealthiest
outside of Wall Street.
Stephens raised $100,000 in contributions for Clinton during his 1992
campaign. He also supplied a $3.5 million line of credit through Stephen's
Worthen Bank, at a time when Clinton's campaign was starved for cash,
according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Though sold out his proprietary
interest in WTI in 1990, Stephens arranged the $128 million financing
for the incinerator through the Union Bank of Switzerland the sane year.
The bank made the loan in anticipation that Ohio would issue tax-free
municipal bond: as bridge financing to pay back the money until the
incinerator began operating.
Shortly after, when the state discovered that WTI had lied to them
about their ownership, Ohio denied the application to issue the bonds,
according to Kaufman. With no means to repay the loan until commercial
burning began, WTI faced the threat of foreclosure. Union Bank never
did foreclose, but it put WTI under more pressure to start burning waste
as soon as possible. Stephens must have felt this pressure. Besides
the percentage of profits that he probably earns from royalties, his
reputation as a financier is clearly at stake if WTI is closed down.
The King Maker
Besides financial brokering, Stephens also excels as a power broker.
For decades, he and his brother Witt, who together built the family's
investment empire, were recognized as kingmakers in Arkansas politics,
and the most powerful members of the state's oligopoly of corporate
interests. According to The American Spectator, Orval Faubus, Arkansas'
segregationist governor in the '50s and '60s, remembered the two as
the state's "most powerful single political force."
In the 1970s, Stephens became a national political fund-raiser for
both parties, and has had continual access to the White House since.
He was a business partner of Bert Lance, Carter's controversial Budget
Director, and was Carter's roommate at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1946.
During the Reagan-Bush years, Stephens was a major contributor to the
GOP. and his former wife, Mary Anne, served as co-chair for Bush's presidential
campaign in Arkansas in 1988.
In 1987, Stephens arranged the bail-out of a small Texas oil company,
Harken Energy, from near bankruptcy. The bailout created a scandal for
the Bush administration when uncovered by the Wall Street Journal in
1991. It seems Bush's eldest son, George W. Bush was a director and
stockholder of Harken. During Bush's presidency, Harken won the rights
to a potentially lucrative contract to drill offshore wells for the
government of Bahrain, though Harken had never drilled either offshore
or overseas. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, just before Harken's stock dropped
drastically, George W. sold two-thirds of his stock for a significant
profit. The Wall Street Journal speculated that the investors made the
deal to cosy up to the President through his son.
The Bank of Crooks and Criminals
This was not the first time Stephens served as the catalyst behind
a political scandal. The biggest controversy surrounding him involves
what New York District Attorney Robert Morgenthau called "the largest
bank fraud in world financial history." Morgenthau was referring
to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, a "criminal enterprise"
that catered to drug smugglers, arms dealers and money launderers, and
bribed bankers and government officials to gain power and money worldwide.
Investigators have dubbed BCCI the "Bank of Crooks and Criminals
International."
Among those currently under indictment are Clark Clifford and Robert
Altman, accused of receiving tens of millions of dollars from the corrupt
bank for their part in its illegal schemes. Although Clifford and Altman
are the most prominent figures in the BCCI scandal, it was Stephens
and Bert Lance who were widely recognized as introducing BCCI to the
U.S. banking industry. In 1978, Stephens and Lance brokered deals through
which BCCI secretly acquired control of several banks in the U.S. Stephens,
Lance and BCCI were indicted in the same year for violating U.S. securities
laws when they attempted a secret takeover of First American Bankshares,
the largest bank in Washington, D.C.
These charges were later dropped with the defendants agreeing to obey
securities laws in the future - which did not stop BCCI from secretly
taking control of the bank four years later. Though Stephens' relationship
with BCCI ended after their indictment, BCCI went on to systematically
loot billions of dollars of deposits in banks they controlled and bilked
thousands of American shareholders out of their investments before the
bank collapsed in 1991. Stephens still maintained business relations
with one of BCCI's partners, Union Bank of Switzerland - the bank which
bailed out Harken Energy, and which lent WTI the money to build the
incinerator.
Presidential Crony
Five years ago, Stephens relinquished control of Stephens, Inc. to
his son, Warren. Today, perhaps as compensation for his high-profile
influence peddling, Stephens maintains a low public profile. Once a
golf partner of Dan Quayle's, Stephens will never be seen jogging with
Bill Clinton or hugging trees with Al Gore. But the political and financial
ties that bind Clinton and Stephens, fellow Razorbacks, are the strongest
by far that Stephens has made with any president.
Besides funding Clinton's presidential campaign, Stephens has supported
Clinton in every gubernatorial campaign as well as his run for attorney
general. Thomas McLarty, White House Chief of Staff, is the former CEO
of Arkla, Inc., Arkansas' largest natural gas utility, which Stephens
owned until the mid 1980's and in which he still has a sizeable interest.
Many other high-ranking members of the Clinton administration represented
Stephens while partners of Rose Law Firm in Little Rock, including Vincent
Foster, deputy White House counsel, William Kennedy, associate White
House counsel, Webster Hubbell, associate Attorney General, and Hillary
Clinton. To further consummate the relationship, their former boss,
Rose Chairman Joseph Giroir, who hired them and made them partners,
is the former director of the Stephens family's Worthen Bank.
Business As Usual
Stephens has never been accused of wrong-doing in connection with
WTI, nor is there any evidence that Clinton has ever acted under Stephen's
advice during his administration. The only evidence lies in what Clinton
and Gore have and have not done since their inauguration.
Though Gore did authorize a federal investigation, whose results are
not expected to be released before the end of the summer, they have
never fulfilled their promise to stop WTI. In fact, Clinton and Gore
announced in April, when the incinerator began operating on a commercial
basis, that they would not block its operation. Two weeks ago, they
allowed the U.S. EPA to issue the permit for commercial hazardous waste
incineration.
Nor has Clinton restructured the EPA to reflect any change in policy
on WTI from the Bush years. After taking office, Clinton fired and replaced
all regional directors of the EPA except one - Region V director Valdus
Adamkus, under whose jurisdiction WTI falls. Adamkus has been responsible
for issuing every federal hazardous waste permit to WTI.
Since her confirmation bearings, EPA Director Carol Browner disqualified
herself from WTI- related decisions because her husband works for a
national environmental organization [Citizen Action] whose state affiliate
in Ohio is involved in the issue - at best a tenuous conflict of interest.
Instead of choosing a neutral party to act on her behalf in the public's
interest, however, Browner chose someone with strong ties to the chemical
industry. She appointed deputy Administrator Robert Sussman as public
liaison on the WTI case. Sussman, it turns out, is a former attorney
for the Chemical Manufacturers Association, where he represented the
interests of Dupont, BASF and other chemical giants who are the largest
toxic waste producers in the country. Sussman was hand-picked for the
administration by Hillary Clinton.
After stacking the EPA's deck in WTI's favor without removing the
jokers, Clinton gambled away the future health of tri-state residents
by refusing to even acknowledge that the incinerator had failed its
test burn in March. The EPA reported that WTI emissions of mercury,
dioxin and carbon tetrachloride exceeded federal limits. Clinton subsequently
gained the dubious distinction of being the first president whose EPA
issued an operating permit to a toxic waste incinerator that had failed
its trial burn.
White Collar Crime
Opponents contend that Clinton's EPA not only has the authority to
shut down but the legal obligation to do so. They point to a massive
body of evidence that proves that WTI's permit is invalid, including
an illegal air permit, an incomplete permit application and alterations
to the permit by WTI's lawyer Charles Waterman, who at one point whited
out the issuance date on the permit and wrote in a new one, according
to Hugh Kaufman.
The incinerator no longer even has a legal owner, according to Ohio
Attorney General Lee Fisher. Fisher's office released the results of
an investigation of WTI on June 30, concluding that the original permit
was issued in 1983. The investigation, which lasted two years while
Fisher's attorneys searched through a labyrinth of name changes and
ownership transfers, gives credence to opponents' claims that the owners
of the facility have engaged in an elaborate corporate shell game to
intentionally disguise their own identities in the event of an accident.
This pattern of confused ownership is exactly what the SEC alleged was
central to the indictment of Stephens and BCCI in 1978.
Moreover, since the current owner of WTI - Von Roll America, Inc.,
a subsidiary of a Swiss engineering firm - is not the same entity to
which the original hazardous waste permit was issued, Von Roll has no
legal permit to operate the facility. Clinton's EPA, however, took none
of these illegalities into account. A week after the Attorney General
released this report, the EPA issued WTI a permit for limited commercial
operation. Clinton's EPA has continued the legacy of past administrations
concerning WTI, critics claim. "The EPA has done everything they
can to permit the incinerator," said Terry Swearingen, director
of the Tri-State Environmental Council. "They've done everything
they can to work hand in hand with WTI, regardless of the law."
Hugh Kaufman expressed a more sweeping indictment of the EPA. "Everyone
involved with issuing WTI's permit to burn toxic waste is potentially
liable for criminal prosecution," he said. Kaufman, a former investigator
with the EPA, added that, "WTI is the best white collar crime case
I have ever seen."
Winners and Losers
The winners in this case are clear. Von Roll will reap huge profits
from the incinerator, and Jackson Stephens, who has seen his baby WTI
grow from conception to delivery, retains his reputation as one of the
country's top financiers. The losers are tri-state residents, who are
being exposed to as much as 762 tons of toxic pollutants that WTI is
permitted to release into the air annually. These include tons of mercury
and lead, as well as substances like dioxin that are considered among
the most toxic elements known. [ed: dioxins are compounds that are created
by burning chlorine containing wastes]
The protestors, for their part, will continue fighting. Over a hundred,
including local members of Pittsburgh Against Toxic Incineration, showed
up again last week in Washington, D.C. - this time in front of the Swiss
Embassy, where 23 were arrested for blocking the embassy's entrance.
One of the arrested, Alonzo Spencer of East Liverpool, said, "We
will go anywhere, appeal to anyone to stop the illegal burning of toxic
waste at the WTI/Von Roll incinerator." They have already proved
that, indeed, they will.
Clinton and Gore will probably lose very little. At worst,
a few critics will count them among the ranks of past administrations
who compromise their morals by playing stooge to corporate interests.
Certainly, many tri-state residents who had faith in Clinton during
the campaign no longer view him as a "people's president."
To them, Clinton and Gore's broken promise will remain over their heads
like a toxic cloud.
Source: Waste Not
Published: July 1997 Author: Brian Lipsett and Ellen Connett
Posted on 09/10/1999 12:20:40 PDT by Uncle Bill
Jackson Stephens: the Father of WTIBy Brian Lipsett and Ellen Connett
July 1997
"This country trumpets to the world how democratic It is, but's
it funny that I come from a community in which our President dare not
visit because he cannot witness first hand the injustice which he has
allowed in the interest of a multinational corporation, Von Roll of Switzerland.
And the Union Bank-of Switzerland. And Jackson Stephens, a private investment
banker from Arkansas. These forces are far more relevant to our little
town than the President of the United States!! ..."
Statement by Terri Swearingen in accepting the Goldman Prize for North
America on April 14, 1997.
Terri was awarded the prize for her work in fighting the building and
operation of Von Roll's hazardous waste incinerator, known as WTI, in
East Liverpool, Ohio.
Jackson Stephens: The man and the myth.
Among the many distinctions afforded Arkansas billionaire tycoon Jackson
Stephens is the fact that his firm, Stephens Inc. marshaled the WTI hazardous
waste incinerator's march from conception to birth. In our opinion, it
was the power of his financial empire that moved a poorly designed monstrosity
on the Ohio River from the truly dumb idea that it was (and is) to its
current manifestation as an ugly and dangerous reality.
In an attempt to understand why the U.S. government, particularly U.S.
EPA Region 5, committed so many illegalities and allowed this incinerator
to be built, it helps to understand that Jackson Stephens always gets
what he wants. In fact, no matter what you think about him, it is hard
to deny that he seems to be everywhere, with his hands on everything.
Stephens is the chairman of Stephens Inc., the nation's largest investment
bank off Wall Street. Its home office is located in little ol' Little
Rock, Arkansas. He and his brother, Witt, built the Stephens Inc. empire
out of a bible, belt buckle and bond business. In 1994, Stephens Inc.
was listed as one of the biggest institutional shareholders in 30 large
multinationals including the Arkansas based firms Tyson Food (# 10), Wal-Mart
(# 113) and Alltel (# 12). Interestingly, it was Stephens who staked Sam
Walton when he started Wal-Mart in 1970, and financed Tyson's takeover
of Holly Farms in 1988. (Stephens, Tyson and Walton (1917-1992), all billionaires
from Arkansas.) Stephens sold a 275 phone exchange to Alltel when they
broke into the phone market, and guaranteed in 1990 that Alltel would
get Systematics by refusing to sell his 10% stake in Systematics to anyone
but Alltel. In many ways Arkansas is the house that Jack built. Unfortunately,
for the folks in East Liverpool, Ohio, and the Tri-State area (WV, PA,
OH) who were saddled with Von Roll's hazardous waste incinerator, Arkansas
was never big enough for Stephens.
Stephens Inc. and WTI
According to the Ohio Attorney General's report on WTI in 1993: "It
was 'Waste Technologies, Incorporated' in the late seventies, a group
of companies owned by Jackson Stephens of Little Rock, Arkansas that became
interested in the possibility of developing industrial waste incinerators
which could be used to generate power. One of the Stephens companies commissioned
Battelle Memorial Institute to do a survey of industrial waste generation
patterns in the United States. The Battelle study was finalized in 1978.
After the study was complete, the Stephens-owned company (known then as
Waste Technologies, Incorporated) hired Don Brown, who had worked on the
study during his employment at Battelle. Don Brown helped make the decision
that the eastern Ohio area was a feasible site for such an incinerator,
based on the nationwide waste generation patterns study. Brown was from
East Liverpool and had contacts to local officials there. In late 1979
or early 1980, Don Brown approached the Mayor of East Liverpool, John
Payne [his former college room-mate, ed.], about the idea of locating
a waste-to-energy incinerator in the area. Mayor Payne referred Brown
to the Columbiana County Port Authority ..." upon whose land the
incinerator would later be built. So with the financial backing of Jackson
Stephens and his company, the WTI incinerator was launched in traditional
business fashion: wheeling, dealing and brazen political fixing.
Some of the Skeletons in Jack's Closet
Jack Stephens has a unique flair for wheeling and dealin". After
all, you don't get to be one of the wealthiest people in the nation without
being good at it. Of course it also pays to be in the right place at the
right time. In 1946 he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with Jimmy
Carter. Adams & Frantz go so far as to claim that Carter and Stephens
were roommates at the Naval Academy (A Full Service Bank, 1992). 30 years
later, President Carter's friend Bert Lance, the man Carter had picked
to run the Office of Management and Budget, was in trouble. Lance's dealings
with the National Bank of Georgia (NOB) were being questioned on Capitol
Hill because of allegations that he had received favorable loan treatment
from the bank as an insider. In August 1977, Stephens arrived on the scene
and introduced Indonesian business tycoon Mochtar Riady to Bert Lance.
At the time, Riady was set to buy Lance's 200,000 plus shares of National
Bank of Georgia stock (Associated Press, August 20, 1977).
That evidently didn't happen though. Instead, Stephens and Riady bought
a bank in Hong Kong. Later Stephens would invite Riady to invest in a
Little Rock, Arkansas bank called Worthen as well. In the meantime, Stephens
found a new buyer for Lance's NGB stock. In December, 1977, Stephens introduced
Lance to Agha Hasan Abedi (the founder of the Bank of Credit and Commerce
International -BCCI). According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,
they discussed the possibility that Abedi purchase the stock of Financial
General Bankshares (later called First American Bankshares) held by Lance,
Stephens and others and concocted a plan to take over Lance's stock of
the National Bank of Georgia U.S. SEC v Lance et. al.). The SEC found
out about the plan and sought a restraining order to prevent a foreign
bank from taking over a U.S. bank. Years later it would be revealed that
Abedi and accomplise Gaith Pharoan went right ahead anyway succeeding
with the takeover in 1982 (Corporate Crime Reporter, July 22, 1991). Abedi
used frontman Gaith Pharoan to act as his intermediary, taking over Lance's
stake in the National Bank of Georgia for BCCI. In 1990, BCCI was convicted
of money laundering for the Columbian Cocaine Cartels in Miami. In 1991,
BCCI collapsed and millions of investors in 73 countries lost their life
savings. (A Full Service Bank, Adams & Frantz, 1992). According to
the Wall Street Journal, "BCCI represents the biggest bank robbery
in history... (January 18, 1994)." And that BCCI was a "$10
billion or so" heist. (Wall Street Journal, October 28, 1994.)
On February 7, 1992, New York Post reporter, Mike McAlary reported that
Jackson Stephens "brokered the 1970s deals in which BCCI officials
secretly acquired control of two American banks... The banks -First American
Bankshares and the National Bank of Georgia were used as a financial clearinghouse
by a collection of [the] world's most dastardly crooks, drug dealers,
dictators and spies....and yet Stephens' ties to principals in the scandal
continue to this day....Lance and Stephens are reported to have made a
fortune as a result of their involvement with BCCI."
Robert M. Morgenthau, District Attorney, County af New York, stated on
July 29, 1991 that "BCCI was operated as a corrupt, criminal organization,
throughaut its entire nineteen-year history. It systematically falsified
its records. It knowingly allowed itself to be sued to launder illegal
income of drug sellers and other criminals and it paid bribes and kickbacks
to other public officials (Evil Money, Encounters Along the Money Trail,
Rachel Ehrenfeld, 1992)."
In October, 1992, the Senate Foreign Relations released an 800-page report
on the BCCI collapse. They argued that BCCI activities represented an
"international financial crime on a massive and global scale,"
and that the bank "systematically bribed world leaders and political
figures throughout the world."
In his own defense, Stephens wrote in the Wall Street Journal that "neither
I nor anyone at Stephens played any role in bringing BCCI to America nor
did we play any role in persuading them to buy shares in Financial General.
BCCI representatives were introduced to me as representing a third party
client. We opened a brokerage account on behalf of these individuals.
We were paid normal brokerage fees for our services. Our contact was brief
and ordinary course (Wall Street Journal, November 18, 1992)."
In response to the concerns over Jackson Stephens' involvement in BCCI,
the Ohio Attorney General noted in his 1993 report on WTI's ownership:
"Stephens' name has been linked to securities violations that allegedly
occurred when the Bank of Commerce and Credit International (BCCI), a
foreign bank dominated by Pakistani financier Agha Hasan Abedi, acquired
stock and control over the Washington-based First American Bank. This
is an error by the Ohio Attorney General. The bank, as noted, was actually
called Financial General Bankshares.] Because Stephens no longer owns
a part interest in WTI, his alleged involvement in the BCCI affair is
not relevant to the reliability of the current owner" (page 37, footnote
4). But the Attorney General's investigation didn't look into the financing
of Von Roll's incinera¢or by the Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS),
which was connected to BCCI through joint ownership of Luxembourg based
Banque de Credit et de Placement (Reuters, July 8, 1991; Financial Times,
July 9, 1991).
Writing about Von Roll's current owner, the United Bank of Switzerland,
and its relationship with BCCI, James Ring Adams notes, "You can
spin threads from that web for as long as you like (American Spectator,
October, 1992)." Spin threads, indeed! Documents filed in Florida
by the Government of Panama indicate that General Manuel Noriega used
BCCI during the 1980's to funnel money to UBS that he had apparently stolen
from the Panamanian military (The Independent, U.K., August 14, 1991).
By 1987, Noriega had become a thorn in the side of the U.S. administration
and anyone (except Jessie Jackson) who could help get rid of Noriega was
apparently just fine.
Once again, there was Jack Stephens. Gabriel Lev' is a Panamanian entrepreneur,
and formerly Panama's ambassador to Washington, had Jackson Stephens as
his banker. Joel McCleary was an American political consultant who had
been the youngest treasurer of the Democratic National Party. McCleary
was a protege of Hamilton Jordon, and a deputy assistant for political
affairs to Jimmy Carter. McCleary went to Panama in 1983, when Jordan's
friend Gabriel Lewis sought help in running the ruling party's presidential
campaign. In the mid-1980s both Lewis and McCleary fell out of favor with
Noriega, and both wanted Noriega ousted. When Lewis, in Panama, felt that
his life was under threat by Noriega he called his "banker, Jackson
T. Stephens, in Little Rock, Arkansas, who was desperate to get his friend
and client to safety...Stephens phoned his former classmate at the Naval
Academy, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral William Crowe.
Stephens asked Crowe to help get Lewis out of the jam. Crowe phoned the
Southern Command, and within minutes General Woerner sent over a black-paneled
truck with some plainclothes bodyguards to protect Lewis and help him
escape Panama...(Divorcing the Dictator: America's bungled affair with
Noriega, Frederick Kempe, 1990)."
"In September 1987 Lewis wanted to bring McCleary back into Panamanian
affairs, this time with a brief to destroy his former employer.... Lewis
had decided he could get rid of Noriega only with the military's help.
McCleary had the contacts and knowledge he needed to pull it off. Again,
Lewis's American banker, Jack Stephens, for whom McCleary had done work
in the past, helped bring the two together..." They worked out of
Washington DC. "By spring of 1988, American foreign policy makers
all agreed Noriega had to go..." George Bush (and Elliot Abrams)
wanted Noriega ousted. Noriega was strong and he was buying intelligence
from CIA agents while he was on Bush's CIA payroll. In August 1988 Noriega
said, "I've got Bush by the balls." According to Kempe, "the
threat [was] that Noriega might reveal much of what he knew: he had many
of the administration's secrets (Overthrowing the Dictator by Frederick
Kempe)." He was finally ousted from power in 1989 when the U.S. invaded
Panama. He was convicted of narcotics trafficking in 1992 and is serving
a 40 year sentence in prison near Miami.
Friends in High Places: Stephens and George Bush
As described above, Jackson Stephens was close to Jimmy Carter and several
people in his cabinet and coterie of political cronies. But Jack Stephens
is also well known for playing both sides of the fence. In 1991, Jackson
Stephens contributed $100,000 to the Republican Party for Bush's presidential
campaign, and Stephens Inc. "kicked in another $100,000." Stephens
wife was the Arkansas co-chairman of the Bush for President campaign.
(Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1991.) He and his wife were hosts to
the Inaugural party for President Bush in 1989. (New York Times, Ma, 8,
1992.) In addition, Stephens brokered the deal that allowed the Union
Bank of Switzerland (as mentioned above, a BCCI-connected bank, that also
financed and ultimately owns the WTI incinerator project) to rescue a
Harken Energy project that George Bush Jr. (son of President Bush) was
involved with in 1987. When Harken needed help, Stephens was there. A
meeting in Little Rock was set up "between Harken officials and Jackson
Stephens that produced an unusual rescue plan. Mr. Jack obtained a $25
million cash infusion for Harken from Union Bank of Switzerland, which
rarely invested in small American companies (The American Spectator, October,
1992)."
Friends in High Places: Stephens and Bill Clinton
Jackson Stephens was a major donor to Bill Clinton's campaigns for Governor
and raised at least $100,000 for Bill Clinton's first Presidential campaign
(Seattle Times, November 6, 1993) while extending $2 million to the campaign
through Stephens and Riady's Worthen bank (The American Spectator, October,
1992). He has been the major financier of Bill Clnton's political career.
According to Peter Truell and Larry gurwin, "No group raised more
money for the Clinton Presidential campaign" than the Stephens Group.
"A study released in July found that employees of Stephens Inc. gave
more money to Clinton than employees of all but two other firms in the
entire country (False Profits. The Inside Story of BCCI, the World's Most
Corrupt Financial Empire, by Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin, 1992)."
Rachel Ehrenfeld argues that "Bill Clinton had full knowledge of
Stephen's involvement with BCCI when he accepted hundreds of thousands
of dollars from the Stephens family for his campaign (Evil Money)."
This is where things get complex. Jackson Stephens, as noted above has
been partners with an Indonesian Tycoon, Mochtar Riady*. His son, James
Riady was a co-president of Worthen Bank (Federal News Service, July 17'
1997). In 1994, Stephens' family interests owned approximately 55% of
Worthen bank's outstanding stocks (Worthen proxy, March 29, 1994). Worthern
provided the Clinton campaign with a $2 million dollar financing deal
that basically saved the Democratic National Party from a cash shortage
in the early 1992 Presidential campaign (The Spectator, October 1992).
The Riadys own a company called The Lippo Group*.
According to William Safire, Lippo's ties to Jack Stephens enabled them
to receive sensitive trade secrets from out of the Clinton Administration
through Lippo employee, John Huang*, who also worked in the U.S. Department
of Commerce as a Clinton employee. The kicker was that Huang would go
across the street from his Commerce office to use a Stephens Inc. business
office as a "drop" to receive and send documents and make off
the record phone calls. "At informative Thompson committee hearings
last week, we learned that Huang, Lippo's man at Clinton Commerce, received
a call on the average of twice a week from a secretary at the Stephens
drop who was instructed not to leave her boss's name. Huang would then
cross the street to pick up and send express packages and use the Stephens
phone. We know that Huang spoke to former Lippo associates at least 237
times in his 14 months at his sensitive trade post. 'That number troubles
me' said Senator Joseph Lieberman.
Mark Pythian Arming Iraq: How the US and Britain Secretly Built Saddam’s
War Machine. Northeastern University Press: Boston 1997
A Forgemasters subsidiary contracted the Swiss steel company Von
Roll to manufacture recoil cylinders, drum housing, and pivot
gun sections for Project Babylon. Forgemasters also contracted Uldry Trading
and Soceta delle Fucine for the project. All companies were aware of the
country and the project they were supplying. (p. 108)
As a registered nurse and mother, Terri Swearingen, 40, knows a little
something about persistence. For the last two decades, she has been making
thousands of calls and speeches, conducting health surveys, appealing
to Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials, pleading with the
President, and making trouble for Waste Technologies Industries (WTI).
Swearingen's goal is nothing less than shutting down one of the largest
toxic waste incinerators in the world, which was built in her hometown
of East Liverpool, Ohio. She now lives just a few miles away in Chester,
West Virginia with her husband and teenage daughter.
04/22/2006
ENVIRONMENTAL GRANTS BENEFIT LOCAL GROUPS, SHCOOLS FOR NINTH CONSECUTIVE
YEAREAST LIVERPOOL, Ohio - Von Roll WTI distributed a total of $3,700
in environmental grants today to representatives of 16 local groups. The
grants, ranging in amounts from $600 to $100, will be used to fund environmental
projects in the community by deserving youth and community groups.
"This year is ninth year for the program," President John Peterka
said. "Since its inception in 1998, we have distributed more than
$25,000 to local organizations for projects that benefit our environment."
The grants were awarded during the company's tenth annual free collection
of household hazardous waste for local residents.
The grant recepients and their projects follow:
$600, Second Baptist Church - Clean up and plant bushes and trees along
a local creek.
$500, Shining Reflections Vocational Training - Provide a community-wide
site to collect and recycle old computers.
$400, East Liverpool YMCA - Sponsor Carnegie Science Center Road Camps
in East Liverpool.
$300, East Liverpool/Calcutta Garden Club - Assist nursing-home residents
to plant flowers and vegetable gardens at their homes.
$250, North Elementary Kindergarten - Purchase books to learn about the
environment.
$250, McKinley Fifth & Sixth Grade Science Club - Create a habitat
for butterflies and birds.
$200, Covenant Playground Task Force - Create a butterfly garden at a
local playground.
$200, Community Resource Center - Clean up and planting project at the
center.
$150, East Liverpool High School Alumni Association - Plant trees and
other landscaping needs near the alumni building.
$150, Lisbon Montessori Preschool - Purchase flower boxes and microscope
to continue butterfly studies funded by grant in 2005.
$150, Wellsville Local Schools - Purchase Earth Day shirts for kindergarten
students.
$150, Friends of Thompson Park - Purchase and install houses for purple
martins.
$100, Girl Scout Troup 808 - Plant flower garden at a nursing home.
$100, Lisbon Baseball Association - Fund landscaping project at the fields.
$100, North Elementary - Study life cycles of insects.
$100, Girl Scout Troop 727 - Plant flowers at Thompson Park.
04/07/2006
CITYSWEEP ENVIRONMENTAL PROJECT CONTINUES FOR EIGHTH YEAR
THOMPSON PARK, East Liverpool, Ohio - With representatives of 12 public
and private organizations standing in support, East Liverpool Mayor Jim
Swoger officially launched the city’s annual environmental project
during a news conference today.
“I am extremely pleased and honored to announce that East Liverpool’s
cooperative environmental project continues for the eighth consecutive
year,” he said.
“CitySweep combines the efforts of public and private organizations
for the benefit of our community’s environment. I commend the member
organizations and their volunteers for continuing this project and for
their community spirit.”
Mayor Swoger noted that citySweep has grown steadily since its inception.
The project, which began in 1999 with six sponsors, now has the backing
of 12 local organizations.
“Potters Leading Other Youth is the new organization I would like
to welcome this year. This group was formed recently at the high school
to build leadership skills and community service among its member students,”
the mayor said.
A popular event is the collection and environmentally responsible disposal
of household hazardous wastes and used motor oil. Residents are invited
to take their old paints, cleaners and other household chemicals to Von
Roll WTI, which is sponsoring the collection for the tenth consecutive
year. Wallover Oil will be there also to recycle used motor oil.
