[Imc-radio] a headline for tomorrow

[Sehvilla Mann]

 Hi Clint, 

 I was wondering if I could add this headline (below)that I pitched to FSRN to the lineup for IMC Radio News tomorrow. 

 -- Sehvilla

Groups Question EPA’s Interference in Monsanto Pollution Case

As EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman stepped down last Friday, two environmental groups were questioning her agency’s actions in a pollution case where they claim EPA interfered to the advantage of the polluter. In February 2002 a jury ruled against the Monsanto Company on multiple counts related to its extensive pollution of Anniston, Alabama with toxic Polychlorinated Biphenyls, or PCBs. After the verdict, say Anniston’s Community Against Pollution and the DC-based Environmental Working Group, EPA began highly unusual secret negotiations on a consent decree with Monsanto. Shortly after a meeting Whitman requested at EPA headquarters, the decree was altered to replace a state-ordered cleanup with a study that could take several years to complete – a change, EWG says, that would save Monsanto hundreds of millions of dollars while significantly weakening the redress of the Anniston community. EWG also brought forth former EPA attorney Janet MacGillivray, who said she had been discouraged from testifying about her concerns over the decree by the top lawyer from the Department of Justice involved in the case. MacGillivray claims that a high ranking EPA official told her the Anniston cleanup didn’t make the National Priorities List because Monsanto didn’t want it to be listed. The current decree is pending approval in federal court. The White House has not yet named Whitman’s replacement to the EPA. 


**********************************
Sehvilla Mann 
smann at stu.parkland.edu
Monsanto Watch:
http://www.organicconsumers.org/monlink.html

"We're living in the age of communication/
Where the only voices heard have money in their hands/
Where greed has become a sophistication/
And if you ain't got money
You ain't got nothin' in this land"
 -- Nanci Griffith