'', Mr. Lambarth said that in a 1974 deposition he falsely denied ever hauling chemicals ''because I wanted to keep my job.'' Wildwood currently zones the Strecker Road properties as nonurban, which requires a minimum lot size of 3 acres. Russell Bliss was accused of picking up chemical waste from a plant in Verona in the early 70s, mixing it chemical plant, where the EPA presumes all of the toxins originated. The buyers said they signed sales contracts without being told by their real-estate agents that their new homes were adjacent to a hazardous-waste site. The first offers were made that month. Piatt's daughter became ill, one of nine people to get sick. On this day, fuzzy dice are 35 percent off. State and federal officials ignored the Centers for Disease Control when it confirmed that dioxin had contaminated an Imperial, Mo., subdivision and urged in 1975 that the dirt be moved to protect residents. Hazardous materials have been identified in 17 waste disposal locations on the site. We have to determine what there motivation is.. As things stand, Byrne Builders holds an option to buy the land from its current owners, Gerald and Patricia Primm. No one listened. ), The worst thing is not knowing, Taylor says. Alligator removed from South Carolina resident's garage. It was during this period that Bliss was trucking some of the sludge to his own storage tanks where he mixed it with waste oil and sold it for dust control. (Burford would resign a month later, amid allegations of mismanagement of the Superfund program.). April 28 (UPI) -- Animal services officers in South Carolina responded to a home where a resident was shocked to find an alligator in his garage. The Times Beach story began as a medical mystery in 1971 when Bliss was hired to dispose of 18,000 gallons of gooey, foul-smelling sludge from the defunct Northeastern Pharmaceutical & Chemical Co. in Verona. She remembers the camaraderie. The biggest fish appears to have either slipped off or broken the line, however. During the past few months, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has taken more than 2,000 soil samples from the park, which is located near the North St. Louis County municipality of St. Ann. He remembers being approached by an official one day while he was working. He drove the truck for Bliss when Times Beach was sprayed. The rabbits died. After Bliss sprayed the Shenandoah Stables in Moscow Mills in 1971, owner Judy Piatt watched barn sparrows die "by the bushel.". Supreme Court of Although the LaGarce lauds the EPA for its quick initial response, he expresses concerns about any further delay in cleaning up the Lemar site. Nebraska students toss water balloons for Guinness World Record. Theres a bumper sticker that says Ignorance is Bliss., They tell stories about the flood. Staff writer Dale Russakoff contributed to this report. They received modest settlements, but the victims were required to absolve the defendants of any future liability. 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. WebJERRY RUSSELL BLISS, INC., Petitioner-Appellant and Cross-Appellee, v. THE POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD et al., Respondents-Appellees and Cross-Petitioners. 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. The fencing is certainly just an interim measure, while we are preparing the final alternative, says Bob Feild of the EPA. This is new growth. The offers were very low, so we got organized, Leistner says. It was an abortion. It would be better to err on the side of safety, says Shea, than risk exposing people to more hazardous waste by digging foundations on the Callahan property and inadvertently excavating a heretofore undetected layer of toxic waste. British man breaks world record with 17 flesh tunnels on his face. By the time he answered the knock, the harried courier had already departed, leaving an unexpected Federal Express packet on his threshold. TBAG, for example, acquired some of its more telling evidence from the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA), which in turn obtained the information from the EPA and DNR. Piatt had a hunch that there was something in Bliss' oil and started befriending his drivers and tailing his trucks. Flood stage was 18.5 feet, and the water crested at nearly 43 feet. Eventually, they moved into a place of their own and started a family. The second half of the sites name is something of a misnomer, because the locations of the Bliss farm and the other hazardous-waste sites are all outside the Ellisville municipal limits. The waste oil salvagers list of clients included: Monsanto, Wagner Electric, Union Electric, Carter Carburetor, American Can and the now-defunct Lianco Container Corp., a can manufacturer jointly owned by Libby, McNeil and Libby and Anheuser- Busch Inc. Monsanto created dioxin as a waste byproduct in its chemical manufacturing processes and also exclusively made toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at its Krummrich plant in Sauget, Ill. until 1977. The whole scene was surreal. On the other side was a small but vocal group of peopleLeistner estimates 50 of Times Beachs 801 familieswho argued that the dioxin wasnt a threat. Remember Times Beach: The Dioxin Disaster, 30 Years Later. They found an artificial tree among the debris that the flood had deposited, so they loaded it into the back of a pickup truck and ran it through a carwash. May she rest there in peace, and may those who cared for her continue to feel her unconditional love. McClellan calls Bliss an intelligent and thoughtful man, and hes stayed in touch with the erstwhile waste hauler over the years. In addition to the oil that he picked up at lube joints, he also hauled sludge from industrial facilities. 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. The oil, it turned out, was laced with dioxin. asked Bill Keffer, the beleaguered EPA engineer in command here. Times Beach officials called the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but it said it might be a year before it would be able to test. Theyve dragged me through the courts and I dont think theyre ever gonna quit, he told CNN. Times Beach was founded, oddly enough, as a newspaper promotion. During the Depression, a lot of the people in the city moved into their homes in Times Beach to ride out the hard times, Leistner says. In 1971, Judy Piatt hired Bliss to spray waste oil on her horse arena, near Moscow Mills, to alleviate dust. Taylor thought that sounded like a bad idea, so he co-founded the Times Beach Action Group to oppose the incinerator. Taylor is a man called to causes. Crammed into a single bungalow, he and his siblings slept on pallets. Even if he had known that what he was hauling was toxic, there were no laws against what he did. Often, Bliss is portrayed as possibly a victim of circumstance, says Steve Taylor, co-founder of the Times Beach Action Group. Officials won't know until next month, when 250 new dirt samples come back from the lab. By 1982, the Missouri attorney generals office had entered negotiations with two other firms, American Can and GK Technologies. The version that the developer presented to Wildwood is pretty vague about what happened, Shea says. "You win a battle, you stick up a flag," said the Chrysler assembly line worker. But despite what McClellan implies, scientists agree that dioxin is dangerous. He is now 78 and lives just off I-44 near Cuba. The same man was under investigation for spraying dioxin-laced oil on roads across the state in the early 1970s. While the CDC warned residents to evacuate and stay out to avoid dioxin exposure, the jury is still out on its long-term effect on humans, as well as the extent of contamination. April 28 (UPI) -- A Nebraska high school said it broke a Guinness World Record when more than 1,000 students participated in a water balloon toss event. Now officials worry that they may never find the 87 places reportedly used for dumping of dioxin-contaminated waste oil. But for the average person, its still unwise to smoke four packs a day. Our approach is not to destroy it, but to assure public exposure can be limited" to healthy levels. Several other sites were created because government agencies failed to prevent removal of tainted soil to other locations. 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. Petitioner asserts: denial deprived petitioner of due process The haul included drums laden with cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Its a thermometer with one-liners painted across its face. The bulk of the park is down below, across the river. I didnt have anything to do with their money.. I think what they really wanted to do was just get people out of the flood plain., Like Sowards, Cheryl Reid Christman recalls how close everyone was. From the picture window of her ranch-style home, Lorraine Jordan has a view of James S. McDonnell Park across Adie Road, where an eight-foot tall cyclone fence is now being constructed. She is survived by her devoted husband of 36 years, Jerry Bliss; her loving daughter, Hannah Bliss; her siblings, Paula Wohldmann, Steve Hyink, Carrie Hyink, and Mary Rust; her father-in-law, Russell Bliss; and her brother-in-law, Cash Bliss. They wanted to paint, but she wouldnt let them, told them to go help somebody else. 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. On any given afternoon, youre bound to see deer wandering in the woods. Yet the poisoning of Times Beach, and 14 other dioxin sites in Missouri and six in Illinois, happened long before that, a deadly legacy by industry and government from an era when there were no comprehensive laws to protect the public from dangers that few had imagined. No (s). I dont care who you would ask, they would say yes.. A federal court jury July 22 found Bliss guilty of over-stating his business expenses for 1976, 1977 and 1978. I saw people that lived in the community lose their jobs, their churches, their homes, health problems. WebIn his early life, Jerry Hicks had been a circus acrobat for two years in Cuba, and then, beginning in 1948, had toured for 20 years as a musician, master of ceremonies, and comedian. If you were born and raised there, you grew up there, but then you moved there., On Saturday nights, she and her husband would get together with friends to play penny-ante poker. As of now, no specifics about Russel Flowers involvement in the accident have emerged on the internet. It was an overstatement, to be sure, but one rooted in factat least until the Great Depression. 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. Everybody was friendly in Times Beach, she says. I look at it this way as a lawyer, says Steincamp. Again, it showed that the incinerator was safe, and again, Taylor found flaws in the testing procedure. When he resigned, Leistner became acting mayor. "Why, if it's so dangerous, did the government wait 10 years to warn us?" The way we understand it, Monsanto told EPA investigators that they did not hire Bliss end of story, says Taylor. She and Frank Purler, another former resident, are looking through old photo albums and scrapbooks that he brought. The residents gathered in front of a hotel in Eureka, crowding around the outdoor pool. Surveyors have also staked out a section of the park near Jordans residence with bright orange flags. By Phil McCausland. But it was not until Piatt's horses began dying and her daughter became ill that CDC toxicologists believed something was dreadfully wrong. A part-owner of a stable where 62 horses died after dioxin-tainted oil was sprayed testified today before the Missouri Hazardous Waste Management Commssion that the man who sprayed the oil had told her it contained a special fly-killing ingredient. Denial of Application. She had a knack for finding the best ice cream shops and loved Dr. Pepper. It's fear of the unknown.". The single cell was only large enough for one, so the boys had to take turns doing their hard time. Its good to put a lot of thought into a process such as this, but when are we going to see some outcome? 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. The citys mayor, Joe Capstick, didnt like the sound of PCBs, and he needed to look out for his family, so he resigned and left. In laboratory animals, dioxin causes cancer, birth defects, miscarriages, diseases of the nerves, kidneys, liver and even death at the lowest levels tested, a few parts per trillion in some cases. Given these revelations and the luxury of six additional years of hindsight, the lack of prudence exhibited by the EPA and DNR at Terre Du Lac is indeed inexplicable. Records confirmed Bliss had been there. Despite evidence of erosion, the EPAs investigation concluded that the fill area of the Callahan subsite was not contaminated (and) that the original objectives of the remedial action had either been achieved through natural processes, or were no longer considered necessary due to the preference expressed by the site owner., Aside from groundwater contamination, the most serious threat to human health posed by the contamination at the Callahan site was airborne migration, according to the EPA. More than 150 beverages delivered to woman's home without explanation. "Nobody told me there was anything bad in it," Bliss told a St. Louis newspaper in December. "When I hear people talking about the effects they're feeling now, tears come to my eyes.". Now, we might be veering slightly toward conspiracy territory, but again, Taylor shows restraint, making associations rather than accusations. Natalie faced her 20-year battle with Multiple Sclerosis with bravery, grace, and dignity. The other St. Louis companies used PCBs or other hazardous substances for different purposes.. There are other holes in the EPAs theory. The EPA removed the remaining barrels in July 1983. Contacted by phone last Friday at EPA headquarters in Kansas City, Martha Steincamp, regional counsel for the EPA, could not provide details on the Bliss-Ellisville cleanups and referred all questions on the matter to Bob Feild, the agencys project manager. Nowadays, much to its chagrin, all of this tainted history falls under the jurisdiction of the city of Wildwood, which was incorporated in 1995. "There may be as many as 70 Times Beaches," said a senior official of the Environmental Protection Agency's hazardous waste cleanup program. Times Beach, which involved burning over 265,000 tons of dioxin contaminated waste from more than two dozen sites in eastern Missouri. She also remembers the flood. The paper had purchased the land from a farmer and rebranded it as a resort, a place for doctors from St. Louis to relax or catch a few fish on the weekend. During the questioning, inmate Scott Rollins, a former Bliss driver, made a stuttering confession that he had picked up waste from Monsanto in Illinois. Schecter uses the analogy of smoking cigarettes. In 1925, folks who paid $67.50 for a six-month subscription to the old St. Louis Times received a tract in Times Beach. Callahan started working for Bliss in the early 1970s, which would have been around the same time Bliss started hauling hazardous waste. Waiting proved to be a bad move. If the city allows W.J. See the article in its original context from. You can move it, but you can't get rid of it. The words come easily, honed over decades of repetition. Natalie M. Bliss, 58, passed peacefully on Tuesday, February 2, 2021, in her home with her husband and daughter by her side. 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. Truckers crudely called him the hemorrhoid with the Polaroid. He wrote ticket after ticket. She confronted Bliss, but he insisted he had used only crankcase oil. Bliss became wealthy spraying it across the state, and he even sprayed it on his own farm, which he would have avoided had he known it was toxic, he has said. Both locations are suspected to have been contaminated by waste-oil operator Russell Bliss sometime in the early 1970s, according to the EPA. This is the most ludicrous thing Ive seen since I was given an arrest warrant for burning a log, says Taylor, referring to one of his past acts of civil disobedience. She wants to let people remember the good times, and she knows that she reminds them of the bad ones. Once their stay in temporary housing ran out, it was hard for people to find homes. For three years, investigators were baffled. Worst of all, Piatts two young daughters, who played in the arena as if it were a sandbox, fell ill. Doctors and veterinarians were stumped, but Piatt suspected the spraying was to blame. Almost 100 horses died agonizing deaths at three horse arenas Bliss visited. Seven families sued the responsible Realtor, and they were awarded a cumulative settlement of more than $500,000. Dioxin, its silent, unseen. WITNESS SAYS DRIVER LIED ABOUT SPRAYING DIOXIN, https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/27/us/witness-says-driver-lied-about-spraying-dioxin.html. Regulatory authorities became aware of the contamination in October. Just about everything seems out of place, even the stuff that says Route 66 on it. Jerry Springer died Thursday at his home, his family said in a statement shared with Insider. St. Louis, MO 63119 The cleanup crew immediately sent 592 drums to a landfill in Wright City, Mo., but more than 600 barrels were stored on-site, along with 500 cubic yards of soil. Further, the incinerator testing had a variety of shortcomings, which were enumerated in a series of stories by C.D. "What is going to happen to us next?" The plant was owned by a subsidiary of Syntex, the company ultimately held liable for the eastern Missouri Superfund clean up. His acting career began at the age of 12 when he was given a role in the western series The 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. It has caused a great deal of concern for people. But as you see, Bliss drivers consistently stated that Monsanto was a client.. But it would be wrong to think that nature has only now come under attack in this part of West St. Louis County. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. People were attempting to determine if Russell died in the accident, which was suspected to be a motorcycle accident. Taylors list of objections goes on and on. For four or five months, that site has been standing there idle. Dioxin levels here are lower, but wider spread, officials said. They didnt take the barrels from the Bliss farm until 1996, when the incinerator was here. In addition to receiving a firm ass-whooping from his father, Copeland was sentenced to an hour in jail. 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. If I had Monsanto as a potential defendant, and had the evidence on them, I certainly would bring them in as a party. It was nearly a week before people could return to begin the daunting task of rebuilding. Mr. Bliss contends he was not warned the dioxin wastes were hazardous and that his license has been denied unfairly because of past practices that were legal and commonplace. Some were rescued in boats. As she walks along the path, OLeary points out breaks in the trees. If they did anything wrong, you were going to find out about it, because one of the mothers is going to tell.. The townspeople couldnt afford to have the results quantified, so they were given only yes-or-no answers. A 74-year-old grandmother, Leistner looks 10 years younger and remains as feisty as ever, with no plans to retire. It was beautiful., Yes. He was 91. She still blames me. [5] Outline of AbrahamHicks' teachings The haul included drums laden with cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). For instance, because some of the toxins at Times Beach were similar to those in Agent Orange, he says, the government might have had an interest in minimizing the Times Beach investigation, to limit its own culpability in Vietnam.
