Port Arthur News 05/09/07

My wife, her sister, and I went to Veolia during open house. They were real nice. They had a real nice barbeque buffet laid out for us. They answered all of our questions. Did you know that they did not have to hire on one extra person or add any kind of monitoring or testing equipment? I told them, "Man, you got a good deal, $49.000.000 and it don't cost you nothing!" I asked them how they knew what they were burning there. They told me that everything that comes in gets analyzed in their onsite lab. I suddenly started feeling much better, until he said, except this Army stuff.

When we sat down to eat, these Veolia officials from New Jersey sat down with us. You know the way they tell how safe this wastewater is, I could not help but think why the Army does not save $49,000,000 and just truck it on down to Crawford, Texas, they could use 2,000,000 gallons of water, with the drought and all. The food was great, but the more those folks talked, the harder it was to swallow.

Leaving, I could not help but think that no one really knows what is in those containers, except the Army. It does seem safe enough to burn it here though, if, it is what the Army advertises it to be, but at the very least, for public safety, our public officials should be demanding that an independent onsite analysis of any waste coming from any military chemical weapons facility be independently verified here before it is unloaded and burned in our state, in our county, and near our cities. Until then, if you see my little black pick-up out on Hwy 73, with us holding up signs, honk and wave neighbor.