Posted - August 4, 2008

Dave Argall	Pinocchio

Dave Argall is a Pennsylvania State Representative for the 124th legislative district, consisting of parts of Berks and Schuylkill counties. Mr. Argall has been a state representative for 24 years.

I recently came across a fundraising letter for Mr. Argall. The letter was paid for by Mr. Argall's campaign finance committee, Volunteers for Argall. The letter contained several questionable assertions so I decided to check the letter for accuracy with the official Pennsylvania Department of State Campaign Finance Reports.

The first paragraph of the letter states:

In April, Dave Argall's political opponents thought that, once they received tens of thousands of dollars from one Philadelphia attorney, they could smear Dave with two weeks of the most negative radio and mail advertising this district has ever seen.

John Schickram was Dave Argall's opponent in the April primary election. I examined the campaign finance reports for both candidates and found the following. The largest contribution to John Schickram's campaign was for $2,712.00. There were no "tens of thousands of dollars from one Philadelphia attorney." In fact, John Schickram spent a grand total of $11,160.04 on his entire campaign.

In contrast, Mr. Argall's campaign committee received two $10,000.00 contributions from one Philadelphia lawyer. On June 26, 2007, Mr. Argall's campaign received $10,000.00 from James W. Greenlee, a Philadelphia attorney. On April 5, 2008, Mr. Argall's campaign received a second $10,000.00 from James W. Greenlee. In addition, Mr. Argall's campaign had expenditures of $47,755.16 prior to the April primary election. Perhaps, Mr. Argall confused John Schickram's campaign finance reports with his own.

The letter goes on:

They thought that if they could just twist the facts enough, they could confuse the voters regarding Dave's voting record and his public service to the people of the 124th district in Berks and Schuylkill Counties.

Either Mr. Argall voted to give himself a pay raise or he didn't. The record clearly shows that Mr. Argall voted to give legislators a 16 to 54% pay raise (House Bill 1521, July 7, 2005). In fact, Mr. Argall gave himself a 34% pay raise and a black eye when he helped design and pass the notorious pay raise in the early morning hours of July 7, 2005, with no public debate.

Either Mr. Argall voted to increase his own pension or he didn't. The record clearly shows that Mr. Argall voted to give himself a 50% increase in his own taxpayer-funded pension (House Bill 26, May 8, 2001).

Either Mr. Argall voted to hike the tax on gasoline or he didn't. The record clearly shows that Mr. Argall voted for a $400 million tax hike on gasoline, making gas prices in Pennsylvania among the highest in the nation (House Bill 67, April 16, 1997). And I could go on and on.

The letter continues:

BUT they didn't count on YOU!—the hundreds of local Election Day volunteers and donors to Dave's campaigns.

Mr. Argall's campaign finance reports show that in 2007 approximately 93% of all contributions to his campaign came from outside the 124th district. Mr. Argall received $118,064.08 in campaign contributions, including $72,175 from 75 different political action committees (PACs) or lobbyists. So much for local donors!

Finally, the letter states:

To celebrate our overwhelming primary election victory and to help us prepare for the November election, please join us...

What overwhelming victory? Mr. Argall has been a state representative for 24 years, is the Minority Whip and has aspirations of becoming the Speaker of the House. In spite of his experience and aspirations, more than one in four members of his own party voted against him in the April primary election. That is hardly an overwhelming victory for someone who wants to be Speaker of the House. Mr. Argall should read the election results properly. The people in his own party are becoming increasingly unhappy with his performance.

I have added the names of David Argall and Pinocchio below the pictures above in case you have trouble distinguishing between the two.

Posted - August 13, 2008

The following story by Robert McCabe was published in The Virginian-Pilot on August 11, 2008 (http://hamptonroads.com) and is a follow up to the Fly Ash Contamination story posted on this site on July 30, 2008 (www.dante7.com/archives-july-08.html). 1.5 million tons of fly ash were used to build a golf course in Chesapeake, Virginia. The consequences follow.

By Robert McCabe
The Virginian-Pilot
© August 11, 2008

CHESAPEAKE

An aerial view of the Battlefield Golf Club in Chesapeake taken in February. (Bill Tiernan | The Virginian-Pilot )

Contaminants found in groundwater-monitoring wells beneath a golf course sculpted from coal ash are at alarmingly dangerous levels, according to environmental experts who have seen more detailed results of city-sponsored tests on the site.

The city refuses to release the full report of the findings, making it difficult to assess the scope of the risks that the contaminated groundwater poses to people living around Battlefield Golf Club at Centerville.

"This is serious; they have a problem," said Dr. Peter deFur, an environmental consultant in Richmond and a part-time faculty member at Virginia Commonwealth University.

"All of these heavy metals cause neurological damage, especially to the developing brain."

Water tests in nearby homes have shown no evidence that contaminants are being ingested or have affected drinking water in any of the roughly 200 potable wells in the vicinity of the golf course.

The city has provided summaries of its findings, which show elevated levels of arsenic, lead, chromium and manganese, all elements associated with fly ash.

City officials have refused, however, to disclose the complete findings of its investigation thus far on the golf course. The testing began following reports in The Virginian-Pilot that 1.5 million tons of fly ash was used to build the golf course and that safeguards such as groundwater-monitoring wells and liners in man-made lakes were not required as part of the project.

The city posted detailed summaries of the test results on its Web site on July 25, eight days after sharing some of the findings with residents living near the golf course and four days after The Virginian-Pilot filed a Freedom of Information Act request, seeking the full set of data.

The Pilot followed up by clarifying its request, asking for the complete set of consultants' records from the golf-course tests. The city provided some additional information, including a map of the well locations, but has declined to release all of the requested records.

In addition to the other heavy-metal contaminants, the findings showed mercury levels well above the state's groundwater standard.

Environmental experts who reviewed the available information from the city said it presents an incomplete picture, lacking such specifics as the depth of the sampling from each well, whether the samples were filtered and how much fly ash, if any, was on the well sites.

"Until they produce the construction diagrams for those wells, nobody knows how to interpret the data," said Charles Norris, a Denver-based hydrogeologist, who in June was part of a panel of experts that appeared before a congressional subcommittee looking at fly-ash disposal regulations.

"The numbers are there; we know they're bad," he added. "But we don't know where those numbers are coming from."

The Pilot asked the city for access to all of the records generated by the firm that conducted the tests on the golf course - Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc. - including all maps, diagrams and drawings.

The city released about 10 items, including summary charts and maps of the site, but the full report has been withheld.

"The city has provided all documents requested regarding the on-site environmental tests except those which are protected by the attorney-client privilege and the attorney work product doctrine under the Freedom of Information Act," Jan L. Proctor, deputy city attorney, said in a July 30 e-mail.

"The specific 'data set' you have requested has not been made public and is being withheld based on a determination by the city attorney's office."

"Perhaps when the report is complete, the information will be released," Lizz Gunnufsen, a city spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail.

Under state regulations that allow for the beneficial use of fly ash, the material was trucked from Dominion Virginia Power's Chesapeake Energy Center in the Deep Creek section of the city and used to sculpt an 18-hole golf course on what had been farmland.

Last month, at a meeting with residents who live near Battlefield Golf Club, city officials released data showing, in most cases, the averages of contaminant levels from the three wells.

The newer data - posted in late July at www.CityofChesapeake.net/BattlefieldGolfClub - shows the actual readouts from each of the groundwater-monitoring wells.

"They do pose a very significant health threat," said Dr. Jeffery Foran, an adjunct professor at the School of Public Health at the University of Illinois-Chicago, who has worked on fly-ash contamination cases nationwide.

"Arsenic would be first on my list," Foran said. "We clearly know that arsenic causes skin cancer and a variety of other ailments."

The data showed arsenic ranged as high as 103 parts per billion - more than 10 times the municipal drinking water standard.

Chromium in one sampling was 302 parts per billion, or three times the standard.

Manganese ranged up to 1,540 parts per billion, or 30 times the standard.

While mercury levels were below the drinking-water standard of 2 parts per billion, samplings from all three wells were at levels four times the Virginia groundwater standard of 0.05 parts per billion.

Fly ash is a powdery residue left from burning coal to generate electricity. It contains heavy metals such as arsenic, lead and mercury that can pose environmental risks through air and water. The developers of the Chesapeake course said the fly ash used on the site was mixed with a binding agent to block any leaching.

Norris, who works with Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, said that concerns him.

"That raises all kinds of questions," he said. '"That stuff hasn't been in place very long."

In Pines, Ind., which became a Superfund site after fly ash dumped by a local power company was linked to well contamination, levels of arsenic and manganese dwarfed those detected so far in Chesapeake.

However, the dumping of about 1 million tons of fly ash in Pines had gone on for nearly 20 years; the placement of 1.5 million tons of fly ash on Battlefield Golf Club began in 2002 and ended only last year.

A map of Battlefield Golf Club at Centerville, released by the city, shows the three monitoring wells clustered in the southeast quadrant of the golf course.

Another map depicts the groundwater flow moving southeast, in the direction of homes on the eastern end of Murray Drive.

Norris, however, said the information released had established groundwater flow only in the southeast corner of the golf course, where the three wells were placed, not in other sections of the course.

It's still unclear how far the contaminants may have moved and whether the wells on any adjacent properties have been affected.

More than 80 water tests conducted during the spring at homes in the vicinity of the golf course showed no contamination, though some elevated boron levels were found. Boron can be a "marker" indicating leaching from fly ash.

Last month, after the city shared some of the test results from the golf course and asked for help from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, another round of water testing was conducted at nearly 30 homes in the direction of the ground water flow indicated by the recent tests.

The results are expected back within the week, city officials say.

Further testing on the golf course, in conjunction with EPA and the Department of Environmental Quality, is in the planning stages, city officials say.

Last month, the city formally petitioned the EPA for a preliminary site assessment, which is the first step in the Superfund process.

Robert McCabe, (757) 222-5217, robert.mccabe@pilotonline.com

Posted - August 18, 2008

Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Protecting America's Health from Toxic Exposure

Media inquiries: 770-488-0700 or atsdrmediainquiries@cdc.gov
ATSDR Web site: www.atsdr.cdc.gov

Federal Agency to Discuss Polycythemia Vera Investigation Findings at Public Meeting on August 25

Note to correspondents: ATSDR staff will be available for a press availability session to discuss the updates of the investigation from 5:30 until 6:00p.m. on Monday, August 25 at Genetti's Best Western Hotel, located at 1441 N. Church St. in Hazleton. No appointment is needed.

For Immediate Release: August 18, 2008

ATLANTA – The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) will hold a public meeting to discuss the final findings of an investigation of the polycythemia vera (PV) cases in Schuylkill, Luzerne, and Carbon counties. The federal public health agency will also outline areas for future research.

The meeting will be held on Monday, August 25 from 7:00 until 9:00 p.m. at Genetti's Best Western Hotel, located at 1441 N. Church St. in Hazleton.

National experts on PV and representatives from the Pennsylvania Departments of Health (PADOH) and Environmental Protection will participate in the community meeting.

PV is a rare illness that causes the body to make too many red blood cells. In August 2006, PADOH asked ATSDR to help determine the number of PV cases in the tri-county area and to look for possible factors in common among them.

ATSDR, a federal public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, evaluates the human health effects of exposure to hazardous substances.

Members of the press can request an interview with ATSDR staff by calling the NCEH/ATSDR Office of Communication at 770-488-0700. The updates on the investigation will be shared at the press availability session and community meeting on August 25.

Posted - August 18, 2008

State Senator Jim Rhoades
Member of PHEAA's Board of Directors

We previously wrote about the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA) and its wasteful spending (see Archives: "Local Ties to PHEAA Malfeasance," December 15, 2007 and "More on PHEAA's Wasteful Spending," January 20, 2008). Now, the Pennsylvania Auditor General has issued a report on PHEAA that provides us with additional information www.auditorgen.state.pa.us.

PHEAA is the state's leading provider of financial loans and grants for post-high school education. The General Assembly has appropriated $472.9 million for PHEAA for grants, scholarships and other programs for fiscal year 2008-2009. In other words, taxpayers fund the agency.

The Auditor General previously criticized PHEAA for its exorbitant bonus program where executives receive more in bonuses than salary. As a result, some PHEAA employees' pensions exceed their salaries.

The Auditor General now reports the following additional wasteful spending:

• $30 million in advertising and promotional expenses, including
  $26,000 for "rally towels" at two Penn State football games,
  $10,000 for iPod music players for an Internet Web contest,
  $5,300 for steak dinners at an exclusive Scottsdale, Ariz., steakhouse,
  $4,300 for a holiday luncheon in late 2005 for senior management to celebrate what PHEAA said was "the success of the past year;"

• $62.5 million in professional service fees (About $37.7 million of the total was spent on contractor fees. Included in the total were $12.4 million in legal fees and $2.1 million for lobbying services, including a $64,551 bonus paid to a single lobbyist that PHEAA sparingly described as a "merit bonus for April 2004 through January 2005");

• $900,000 to two human resources firms for services that included assistance in designing the executive compensation program; and

• $80,000 to buy tickets to Hersheypark for an employee appreciation day in April 2007.

The Auditor General also reported that as of June 30, 2007, PHEAA had a fleet of 73 vehicles – 30 pool cars and 43 vehicles assigned permanently to employees. PHEAA's policy not only permitted the 43 employees who were assigned vehicles to drive them for personal use, but it also permitted the employees' spouses to drive the vehicles.

Who is overseeing PHEAA? The answer is the Board of Directors. Who is on the Board of Directors? There are 20 members of the Board, including 16 state senators and representatives.

Our own state senator, Jim Rhoades, is a member of the Board of Directors overseeing PHEAA. He represents Senate District 29, which includes all of Schuylkill County and parts of Berks, Carbon, Lehigh, Monroe and Northampton counties.

This is the same Jim Rhoades who introduced Senate Bill 142, which would allow political hacks and corporate polluters to determine the safety of sewage sludge to the exclusion of exposed victims and independent scientists (see Archives: "Legislative Garbage," September 20, 2007).

This is the same Jim Rhoades who voted himself a 28% pay increase of $19,508 on July 7, 2005 and then accepted $7,708.54 in unvouchered expenses. After public outcry, he agreed to pay back the unvouchered expenses over three years, in effect giving himself a three-year interest free loan.

Is there any wonder that PHEAA's extravagance is unchecked and out of control?

On November 4, 2008, you will have a chance to let Senator Rhoades know what you think of his representation of the people. You can tell him what you think about his supervision of PHEAA, about the legislation that he has introduced and about the pay raise that he gave himself. It is up to you to VOTE.

Posted - August 26, 2008

Waste Coal Cogeneration Plant

On August 25, 2008, scientists from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) held a public meeting in Hazleton, Pennsylvania about the results of their investigation into the polycythemia vera cancer cluster in this area. The main point being reported in the press is that the federal agency confirmed the presence of a polycythemia vera cluster – the first and only cluster of polycythemia vera ever recorded in the United States. We have three specific comments on the meeting.

First, the federal scientists also reported that they found three areas within Luzerne, Schuylkill and Carbon counties with a significant elevation of the polycythemia vera rate. The three areas were identified as an area south of Hazleton and north of Tamaqua, an area south of Frackville and an area in eastern Carbon County near Jim Thorpe.

Dr. Vincent Seaman, a research toxicologist at the ATSDR, stated that a conservative estimate of the polycythemia vera rate in these three areas was four times higher than the rest of the tri-county region. In October 2007, the ATSDR reported that the rate in the tri-county region was approximately 4 times the state rate (see Archives: ěPolycythemia Vera Cancer Epidemic, November 9, 2007). Thus, it is fair to state that the ATSDR results indicate an approximate 16-fold increase in the polycythemia vera rate in these three areas.

The ATSDR report did not indicate what is the cause of this polycythemia vera epidemic but did identify hazardous waste sites, air pollution and coal mining operations as three environmental similarities in these areas. We can go farther than the ATSDR.

In 2006, Sue Sturgis, a reporter from North Carolina reviewed the Pennsylvania Department of Health’s data of reported cases of polycythemia vera by county for the years 2001 through 2003 and suggested a possible association between polycythemia vera and power plants that burn waste coal (see Cancer researcher confirms possible link between polycythemia, waste-fuel-burning power plants, December 7, 2006, www.hometownhazards.com.

In 2007, we published an article indicating that there was evidence suggesting a possible link between the polycythemia vera and waste coal burning power plants (see Archives: ěPointing the ATSDR in the Right Direction,August 24, 2007).

There are waste coal burning power plants in the three areas identified in the ATSDR report. We can only hope that the scientists at the ATSDR will open their eyes and look at the most likely cause of the polycythemia vera epidemic.

Second, a representative from the office of Senator Arlen Specter announced that Senator Specter had arranged for $262,000 in federal funding for Drexel University School of Public Health in Philadelphia to investigate the polycythemia vera problem in this area. The full Senate, the House of Representatives and the President must still approve the appropriation.

We found this direct appropriation to a school in Philadelphia to be of particular interest. In 2007, Senator Specter wrote about the initial ATSDR report as follows, "I am heartened by the study's findings that there are no environmental or occupational causes for the disease...."

In addition, the usual method for funding scientific research is to give the money to a federal agency such as the National Institutes of Health and have a scientific panel select the best proposal for the funding. I am suspect of the motives of any politician who is heartened by findings of no environmental or occupational causes and who gives money directly to a university in his hometown.

Finally, in 2006, the Pennsylvania Department of Health reported statistically significant increases in the incidences of buccal cavity (mouth), cervix, colon-rectum, larynx, leukemia, polycythemia vera, skin (malignant melanoma), stomach and uterus cancers in the tri-county area. However, the government scientists have failed to follow up on any of these cancers other than the polycythemia vera cancers.

Perhaps our elected officials can put some pressure on the federal and state scientists to do their jobs.