Graham writes: "After Freedom Industries poisoned 300,000 peoples drinking water last year, the company changed names and is still up to its old tricks."
Water in Charleston, West Virginia, after Freedom Industries' chemical spill in January, 2014. (photo: savethewater.org)
West Virginia Still Has Chemical Spills: Same Company, Different Name
24 January 15
all it what you will, but a chemical company has succeeded in pulling a fast one on West Virginians. After Freedom Industries poisoned 300,000 peoples drinking water last year, the company changed names and is still up to its old tricks.
The name-changing fiasco apparently never made the national news to any extent because, after all, Freedom Industries ended up filing for bankruptcy after it was determined they were at fault for the leaking tank of chemicals in a tank farm along the Elk River in Charleston, West Virginia in early January, 2014.
Many people assumed this was the end of the story. But you needn't fool yourselves because the company's executives quickly figured out how to get out of the mess. They filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy on January 17, 2014, citing the demands of creditors and a pile of lawsuits. Actually, they also knew that the bankruptcy code forbids anyone from filing a lawsuit against someone who has filed for bankruptcy.
In Freedom Industries filing, they listed a maximum of $10 million in debts. The amount was questionable because they already owed $6 million to the IRS and a few other creditors. The real owner of Freedom Industries was revealed in the bankruptcy filing to be J. Clifford Forrest, a Pennsylvania coal baron. He had purchased the company about three weeks before the spill for around $20 million.
The real owner of Freedom Industries revealed
Pay attention now, because this gets interesting. Freedom Industries claimed they were owned by Chemstream Holdings in Kittanning, the same address as Forrest's Rosebud Mining, the third largest coal producer in Pennsylvania. Freedom's filing also showed that VF Funding and Mountaineer Funding was willing to lend them as much as $5.0 million to help in the company's reorganization.
Mountaineer Funding was incorporated one week before the bankruptcy filing, and guess who's name is listed as the only member? If you said Forrester, you win the Grand Prize. So in other words, Forrester was asking to lend his own money to himself to get his new business out of hot water. The conflicting reports of just who really did own Freedom points to a huge fault in American business dealings, and it centers around holding companies and roll-ups, making it hard to determine who owns what.
The formation of Lexycon LLC
While the bankruptcy filing was going on, on April 3, 2014, a chemical company, Lexycon LLC registered as a business in West Virginia. The new company had the same address and telephone number as Freedom Industries. When the W. Va. Gazette investigated, they found the executives for the new company were the same as Freedom's.
Lexycon was started in Florida on March 24, 2014, and listed an address on North Collier Boulevard on Marco Island, Florida. Gary Southern, who is listed as president of Freedom, owned a home on Marco Island. But the address on the West Virginia registration gave Lexycon's address as a place in Naples, Fla. To add to the mystery, Southern sold that property in July 2014 to Cascadia, a company with the same mailing address as Lexycon. I won't go into the changing of the president of the company's name. It's just too unbelievable to think about.
Lexycon LLC cited for eight violations over the past five months
Today the Associated Press is reporting that Lexycon LLC has been cited by state regulators for a number of violations since August 2014. These include pouring chemicals without a permit, the lack of containment walls around chemical storage tanks, and having tanker-trailers on the premises with unknown chemicals.
Dennis Farrell, a former Freedom Industries executive and consultant for Lexycon is facing a three-year prison term for his part in the chemical spill in 2014. Kevin Skiles, Lexycon president, owned 5.0 percent of Freedom's shares and was a research and technology specialist. Both Farrell and Skiles were listed as "technical" consultants when the W.Va. Gazette investigated Lexycon in May of last year. At that time, after emailing the company about the men, the paper found that both men's names had been removed from Lexycon's website.
What amazes this writer is the obvious under-the-table tactics employed by these executives in avoiding any fault in what was a blatant abuse of their company's place in the industry. Further reading into the details of the men in question's backgrounds will show numerous jail and prison sentences for everything from narcotics to corruption. If the people of West Virginia let this corrupt company continue to do business in their state, who's to say what will happen next.
|
THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community. |
Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
General guidelines: Avoid personal attacks on other forum members; Avoid remarks that are ethnically derogatory; Do not advocate violence, or any illegal activity.
Remember that making the world better begins with responsible action.
- The RSN Team
People like Taibbi are a thorn in our conscience.
but not the critical one, it seems to me.
What's most important is that Manning is being punished
for revealing at least one blatant war crime.
Had he done ONLY that, does AlWight think the military
would have behaved more gently? Or confessed?
But in reality, Manning did a huge document dump
that may or may not have included the sorts of information
that AlWight worries about. At this point, it's not clear
that anyone in the world has done that analysis,
which would be challenging, but is doable.
To date, there is apparently NO evidence that the doc dump
seriously compromised anything that should not
have been compromised. So while it remains possible that
Manning actions may have been mixed,
there's nothing to justify his lynching --
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/282-98/17803-us-army-court-martials-constitution
NOT releasing the information for review and expected criminal investigation is a military crime under section 499 of the Army Field Manual.
I've never been to Wikileaks to examine the "evidence", but have seen "Colateral Murder" on YouTube. I was appalled, considering that it wasn't mere actors and fake bullets. Those civilian Reporters are REALLY DEAD now.
You completely miss the point. Manning disclosed criminal acts that the government has attempted to hide from the U.S. public. "Criminal Acts" do not deserve to be safeguarded; they deserve to be exposed and their perpetrators deserve punishment.
This government has expanded the use of the 'classified' label beyond any conceivable legitimate use. Don't be a sucker and fall the ploy that because somebody put a 'classified' stamp on a criminal act, that act should be kept secret to 'protect us'.
We should never be protected from the truth of these atrocities.
(Bring on the NOBEL Prize!)
"..a war that history has revealed to have been a grotesque policy error."
Invading countries IS the policy and the course chosen and taken by the Gov't.
Where's the error? THE ERROR IS IN THE POLICY. The Irak war is the correct result for an erroneous policy. I'll agree if the very much appreciated Mr. Tabbi means: "..a policy that history has revealed to be a grotesque error." or simply: "This is a 'grotesque policy.'"
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant. Matt, as usual, you hit the nail on the head while everyone else was busy examining the hammer.
(*) I Am Bradley Manning!
The military system is allowed blatancy in denying citizens their rights, under the rationale they are not subject to the same laws, nor even "free" citizens, by dint of having enlisted. However, "Homeland Security" teaches us we are one nuclear "accident" away from becoming subject to that selfsame system of government, enlisted or no.
Does their right to our ignorance trump our right to know of atrocity? There has not been a definitive answer since Nazi Germany.
Then, Lind has this she added to the Law Review in 2000, MEDIA RIGHTS OF ACCESS TO PROCEEDINGS, INFORMATION, AND
PARTICIPANTS IN MILITARY CRIMINAL CASES
1. An unstable person should not have access to critical information, and anyone who has such access should be loyal. Manning is on trial for leaking documents as an unstable person. The charge is valid. The seriousness of the consequences is yet to be determined.
2. It is the government and those in charge of the crimes revealed that should be on trial. The seriousness of these crimes is unquestionable.
Tabbi is correct that the attempt will be made to focus on the most narrow of these concerns and to ignore the rest of it. It is up to the citizenry to force this issue; I do not trust either political party to handle this correctly; both have dirty hands.
Fear prevents us from acknowledging the import of such strong decisions. Don't be a dinosaur.
I hope they rot in prison.
It must be very hard to be an american with brains nowadays :(
Steele worked directly for Petraeus, Rumsfeld and Cheney who he had met while training death squads in el Salvador. They admired his work and brought him back as an advisor when they invaded Iraq.
His work there building up the death squads in Iraq would generate 3,000 corpses a month and uncounted victims of torture as it peaked during "the Surge."
For the Bradley Mannings, the Daniel Ellsburgs, the Berrigan Bros., and so many others, I am humbled, and am learning as I age to not fear those who thrive on fear. Fear and abuse of those who reveal their crimes is all they really have in their arsenal. if we can learn not to fear them, to look them in the eye, humbly, but honestly and with meaning, then this country may still have a chance. If not, then we'll receive what we have earned in our apathy and comfort.
I salute Bradley Manning, and vow to continue to work toward not fearing the machinery that strives for Total Power.
Thank you Bradley manning, for reminding me how to live my life... again.
till this hour has come around
and I'm gone on the rising tide
gone to face Van Diemen's land
It's a bitter pill I swallow here
to be rid from one so dear
we fought for justice
and not for gain
but the magistrate
sent me away
"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my
contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the
spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be
done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the
loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate
all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to
shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing
under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
- Albert Einstein
.....
True. Because there are, essentially, NO headlines about the Manning trial ... the Snowden issue has managed to eat them all up.
James Bond it is not. At least, not James Bond as Hollywood-adver tised heterosexual.
See Ian Fleming as a British homosexual intell operative--then you are a bit closer to the truth.
It appears fascism in our day is bi-sexual in its smear tactics and innuendo.
I might think the President is more worried about the ramifications-- than Mrs. Clinton--truth be told.