You got to do your homework on these pieces, otherwise youre wasting your time. Top editors give you the stories you want delivered right to your inbox each weekday. Tests show dioxin in the fish. He wanted to stay there, so she just divorced him. That was too much for Hammer to bear. On the recommendation of an EPA ombudsman, a retest was completed. Many have relocated with federal emergency help, but hard-headed "river rats," as they call themselves, are rebuilding modest homes in the "Show Me" state. And despite McClellans best efforts to engender compassion for him, Bliss remains an unsympathetic character to those affected by his actions. The environmental activist, who is too young to remember the Selective Service System, and too poor to be concerned about the Internal Revenue Service, had, nevertheless, received a frightening message from a federal agency. William Powell was St. Louis Magazine's senior editor from September 2012July 2016. But nobody from the federal agency has bothered to walk across the street and inform her about the purpose of these actions. Sewer workers discovered the first batch of barrels on the property of the Rosalie Investment Co., near the intersection of Strecker and Clayton roads, in July 1980. Ultimately, the state accepted $94,000 in 1988 as its part of a $660,000 settlement with several companies, a fraction of the estimated overall cleanup cost. I look at it this way as a lawyer, says Steincamp. A guard and a caution sign were posted at the entrance to town, a bridge that came across from the high side of the river, to keep people out. Bliss was, and remains, a clever businessman. If she had a couple of drinks at Bucks Place, she could walk home. Jerry Bliss, 26, said he should not be penalized for the actions of his father. On December 5, the river jumped its banks, and quickly, the entire town was submerged. You didnt have to lock your doors., Velda Pratt, who lived in Times Beach with her husband and four kids, talks about coming back after the flood. When considering deviations from the existing zoning code, the city takes into account several factors, such as the availability of utility services, topography and road conditions, but nothing on the municipal books deals with building houses on top of former hazardous-waste sites. first published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), March 25, 1998 When everybody was scrambling, because we lived almost to Blakey [Road], farthest away, we didnt think the water was going to come up to us, Purler says. She traveled the country to countless rodeos, barrel races, and team ropings, often with her husband and daughter by her side. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. After the flood, 40 residents at one trailer park vowed to go home again. no. "There may be as many as 70 Times Beaches," said a senior official of the Environmental Protection Agency's hazardous waste cleanup program. Leistner grew up in Valley Park and moved to Times Beach in December 1956, at age 18. They even had a couple of pool tables, and one time, Minnesota Fats stopped by for a game. In August, the EPA warned Imperial residents of a potential dioxin problem, later revealing that it suspected contamination of 40 other sites in Missouri. Share your thoughts and memories of Natalie. So Ill just let the record of decision stand for itself, OK? For four or five months, that site has been standing there idle. These days, Bliss, whos in his late seventies, is still finding unique ways to make a buck. I do not believe that at all. The first offers were made that month. Fourteen calves either have been stillborn or died shortly after birth, and last week another tumor-riddled cow was slaughtered for dioxin testing by the Food and Drug Administration. (He declined to comment for this story.) Donna Lopers family moved to Times Beach when she was 6 months old. Now the fledgling city faces a dilemma: Two developers are asking for zoning variances so that they can wedge dozens of high-priced houses on either side of Strecker Road on parcels of land that were once part of the Bliss-Ellisville hazardous-waste site. Only a small portion of the residents ever made it back. Additional dioxin that migrated off-site has been removed from the roadside and an area next to a nearby pedestrian walk. She stayed, married, and had two daughters. Dog missing for 26 days walked 40 miles to his former home. The chemical companies paid him to take the sludge, and then he turned around and sold it to somebody else. "Is it in the garbage? It's a free country. Some even refused to shake his hand. Of particular note was a chemical plant in Verona, which had been used to produce Agent Orange and hexachlorophene, an ingredient used in soap. What Im going to ask is that they provide the citizens with some level of accountability, because we certainly arent getting it from the EPA and we shouldnt have to depend on the developer to provide it.. Times Beach, which involved burning over 265,000 tons of dioxin contaminated waste from more than two dozen sites in eastern Missouri. Monsanto is where we got the pesticide, the stuff that I thought smelled like bug spray. Wurm is referring to Tom Uhlenbrock, who first reported the Wildwood development plans in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on June 11. I think theyve done that.. They could smoke four packs a day without any harm.. The news, on the other hand, broke on the 22nd of December, with no mention of any accident. One of her adult sons has since contracted a lupus-like disease, says Jordan. In addition to the oil that he picked up at lube joints, he also hauled sludge from industrial facilities. No one can answer the questions the people of Times Beach are asking. The courts appraisals came back even lower than the EPAs offers, and the other benefits were no longer available. That paved the way for final approval of the buyout. Judy Piatt, who was co-owner of Shenandoah Stables in 1971 when the arena was oiled for dust control, testified that the driver for Russell Bliss, a waste oil dealer, ''told me there was special stuff put in the oil for special customers that would kill flies.''. Mrs. Piatt was followed to the stand by Gary Lambarth, a former Bliss driver, who testified that he lied about hauling chemicals in a 1974 deposition because his former boss had told him ''to keep my memory fuzzy about things like that. But even in the heat of election season, Taylor is happy to carve out a couple of hours to make his case about Times Beach and the problems he perceives with the cleanup. He reports that exposure to dioxin has certainly not hurt Bliss and that scientists have been mixed on the dangers of dioxin, citing a quote from the late Dr. Vernon Houk of the Centers for Disease Control, who once said that the evacuation of Times Beach was an overreaction. The rugged land has resisted development for a long time, so a rural atmosphere still clings to these verdant hills, despite the encroachment of affluent subdivisions on the remaining ridgetop farms. Jerry Lewis is, in spite of it all, still alive. Officials won't know until next month, when 250 new dirt samples come back from the lab. It's fear of the unknown.". Sometimes, Copeland and Bunch would spend a summer day walking the railroad tracks on the west end of town. Besides giving the site a clean bill of health without any soil testing, the DNR ignored its own warnings signals. Hammer, for example, wants "proof" that dioxin is dangerous or a fair-market price from the government for his property to move. He was 91. But the fire was rekindled, and the remaining soil was burned. But as you see, Bliss drivers consistently stated that Monsanto was a client.. I dont know his real name, because he never did say it, Copeland says. A Post-Dispatch story dated April 4, 1983, describes the 500 cubic yards of soil stored at the Callahan site as being contaminated., A later EPA inspection showed that the land had subsequently subsided and would require stabilization. If they did anything wrong, you were going to find out about it, because one of the mothers is going to tell.. The toxic chemical was contained in waste oil Bliss' company sprayed on roads, parking lots, truck terminals and horse arenas for dust control. Evening Standard/Getty Images. Slowly, the town grew. Jerry Hatcher, the town's heavy equipment dealer, lost a sale when a customer found dust on a tractor tire. He reported a litany of problems: Documents were lost; samples were mislabeled and switched; a chain of custody was not established. Waste was tracked to the Verona plant. The citys nearly 2,500 residents were divided about what to do next, whether to stay or to ask for a buyout of their property through the EPAs Superfund. A flood, thats real. Meanwhile, EPA technicians stalk the town in "space suits," sanitary gloves and respirators, digging through muddy homes and debris and taking soil samples to see if the heavy floods washed dioxin-laced mud from the roadsides into homes. Remedial action is mandated by the EPA in a residential setting at one ppb or higher. The town is gone, but the people remain. A missing page, a missing date, a missing signature. Jerry Lewis, the legendary actor and comedian, has died, his talent agency said Sunday. We would invite the press out, and we would spray-paint the prices on the homes. She has a photograph of a house with $15,800 scrawled across the siding. "Only if they said, 'Sid, next week you'll have cancer,' I might worry. Bliss son still lives on a Strecker Road property once owned by his father, from which the EPA only a few years ago finally removed more than 900 truckloads of dioxin-contaminated dirt in addition to an estimated 1,500-2,000 barrels of toxic chemicals. She won't ever come back to the white frame house that sits abandoned in this flood-ravaged town of 2,500 after learning that her two sons played in dirt contaminated with one of the most dangerous chemicals known to man: dioxin. There are many epidemiological studies that showed health effects in humans exposed to dioxins, says Dr. Hana Pohl, an environmental health scientist at the CDC. She and Frank Purler, another former resident, are looking through old photo albums and scrapbooks that he brought. "You'd tell people, 'it's got to be a chemical in the horse arena' and they'd look at you like you were nuts," she said. The version that the developer presented to Wildwood is pretty vague about what happened, Shea says. They didnt take the barrels from the Bliss farm until 1996, when the incinerator was here. Natalie is reunited in Heaven with her parents, Robert and Nanon Hyink; her mother-in-law, Evelyn Bliss; and a host of cowboys, cowgirls, and horses that loved her deeply. They received modest settlements, but the victims were required to absolve the defendants of any future liability. WebJERRY RUSSELL BLISS, INC., Petitioner-Appellant and Cross-Appellee, v. THE POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD et al., Respondents-Appellees and Cross-Petitioners. Ive felt that the steps that weve taken and the timeliness of those steps have been appropriate, says Hall.
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