P---hilips S---candal C---ountrywide

It would seem as though the fine people at PSC are not strangers to the current type of situation that we are experiencing here in the South Fulton, North Fayette area. After doing weeks of research and "googleing" numerous combinations of the following:

PSC
Philips Services Corp
AllWaste (an affiliate)
Propyl Mercaptan
Ethrop
Naphthalene
spill
ground water
problems
community
Ontario (their HOME base of operations)
chemical
pesticides
cleanup

I have unearthed many pages of Governmental and non-governmental complaints, cover ups, loose ends, and all around neglect by this company in Michigan, Washington State, and a few others. It almost seems as this company is allowed to do what they are doing here while they can, get caught, do a nice job covering up the issue, and move to another community to do it all over again. While I am sure that the industry they are in is very difficult, with procedures, protocols, enforcement (sometimes), and the handling of hazardous materials, I am sure that they could run a tighter ship. One document I read was regarding their attempt, in bankruptcy court against the Department of Justice, to weasel out of cleaning up a waste site...

from the following website I found this interesting excerpt:

http://www.usdoj.gov/enrd/Electronic_Reading_Room/lit_Accomplish_2004.html

...Of particular note this year, the Division successfully defended against several attempts by debtors to misuse bankruptcy law to evade legal obligations for public health and safety protection (e.g., Philips Services, Horizon and Union Financial) and used innovative trust instruments to provide for cleanup of contaminated properties. In the Philips Services bankruptcy, the United States successfully thwarted the debtor's plan to abandon Superfund sites it owned without providing for cleanup. In lieu of abandonment, the debtor transferred the sites to custodial trusts and agreed that governmental parties will receive the benefit of more than $6 million of cleanup work...

WOW! And we are to believe that they are trying to CLEAN their site and not COVER UP any mistakes. And without the EPD/EPA doing their jobs for at least the last two years, we are not sure what the heck is going on here.
I am sorry for ranting, but I am infuriated with what this so called corporation has done to me, my family, the environment, and our communities ability to enjoy their OWN BACK YARDS!!!!!!!!!! Every time I see a truck rolling down the hill in their direction, I get more angry. I feel as though we are all fighting this battle alone without the officials who need to be involved or those who are not listening. Fayette County has shown much concern and has taken greater action that others in stopping this 400lbs. gorilla. Setting up websites, actually collecting forms from those affected in both counties, handing over Fulton's reports from there. I do not understand why we have one county collecting anther's health reports in a serious situation such as this! Fulton needs to take charge in this matter as the PCS plant is in their county lines. They can not allow themselves to be bullied, outdone, or cornered by PCS. I know they have the ability to walk on the PCS site, with the proper "red-tape" in hand, and close them down until all of the proper answers are given. For example, if they had not paid their taxes, the IRS could walk up to the front door right now bust it down, change the locks and make PCS answer questions before the keys were ever handed back over to them. Are the faces on the dollars they hypothetically owe in this example more important than the real faces of those that these pesticides are effecting. The longer the officials who are involved take to force them to answer questions, the longer they have to come up with ways to get out of facing up to their mistakes. It is obvious that they are not afraid of anyone including the Justice Department. Anyway, until next time I hope you all enjoyed the rain yesterday, I did immensely

Keep it up Kamots

Submitted by ExExPatriot on Mon, 08/07/2006 - 6:10pm.

Keep fighting this.
It seems to be a financially rewarding tactic for Philips to buy some land, take payments for storing dangerous stuff while just dumping it on the ground, then file bankruptcy to avoid having to clean it up.
Great plan unless it's your ground water.

Hey - and pretty scathingly cool acronym stuff!

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Keep up the good work

Submitted by bad_ptc on Sun, 08/06/2006 - 8:31pm.

Thank you for taking the time to keep this issue in full view of the county.

I would hope that the Fayette County counsel and perhaps even Cal have read your reports and are contemplating investigations of their own.

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