The following is an email sent from Heather McMurray to the Site Trustee, Roberto Puga:
Ms. Schell,
Please do not play the community for being fools. That Pirnie document did not include all Encycle documents – left out the illegal wastes — left out ALL the manifests regarding that.
That was brought to the attention of the EPA in Dallas.
Your contractors also did not warn the community yesterday during the ASARCO fire about the dangers within that black billowing smoke from the illegal-secret chemicals caked onto those metal conduits from years of Asarco’s illicit activities.
Why not??
thank you,
Heather McMurray
Response from Roberto Puga:
Dear Ms. McMurray,
Thank you for your continued interest in the ASARCO Smelter project.
The document referenced in your question did contain and evaluate all of the relevant Encycle documents posted on the EPA Region 6 website, in total 2176 pages that included 300 manifests of wastes that were shipped illegally to El Paso. We augmented that with one additional manifest we found at the site. This represents all available documentary information on the illegal wastes sent to the smelter from Encycle. We had extensive discussions with EPA Region 6 to make sure we had all available Encycle information for our report.
Regarding yesterday’s incident, we contacted EPA, TCEQ and OSHA about the incident. I have ordered all work stopped until we have completed our Root Cause Analysis investigation and I am assured that it is safe to resume our work. The unit that burned was part of the water treatment plant at the site, which was not among the process units at the smelter that came in contact with materials to be smelted. The black smoke seen was caused by a fiberglass access grate on the unit that caught fire.
Sincerely,
Roberto Puga, Site Trustee