Down goes Goliath

Due to the failing economy, ASARCO has called off its efforts to reopen. This is great news - well kind of. Why? Well for one, at least now the city can stop wasting its taxpayers' money fighting this and get back to business - like the drug legalization debate. Just kidding about that last part, but seriously, this could be an opportunity El Paso could capitalize on now that ASARCO is out.

According to this report a while back in 2007 from UTEP's Institute for Policy and Economic Development, if ASARCO would have opened and employed the 291 individuals it had planned, "regional economic output would increase by $1.159 billion, 1,819 new jobs would be created, and 73 million dollars in new labor income would be generated."

So what are we losing out on in terms of higher paying job growth at expense for a cleaner city? The answer varies, of course, depending on which team of scientists you ask and if you take Mexico's unregulated plants and factories into account.

What is done is done, but now what do we with that land?

My question to you is, if you had a position of power in this city, what would you do with that land that is within reason and that this city can afford? I've heard plans of a Riverwalk, etc etc that would incorporate the Rio and Mexico, but I don't think that would fly right now considering the state Mexico is in right now.

Lets just hope something gets done, and this doesn't become another disaster like Ascarate.

Comments

[TakeDownAsarco]

The study you site was conducted via a large grant provided by, who else, ASARCO.

When the City of El Paso tried to get the UTEP IPED to a study in their favor, against the smelter, they dished out far fewer dollars. Look at the results of each study and see how independent and reliable each is.

Money spent against Asarco was not wasted, in my eyes. This place was cited for burning chemical weapons waste materials in 1997. They deserved the pressure from the city.

My question to YOU is not what will be built, but what will be covered up?

We need to know what toxic chemicals other than lead, cadmium, and arsenic are in the soil.

myspace.com/takedownasarco

[Mike.Arriaga]

Any study, even those you find in scientific articles get support from an entity. Sometimes that entity is the pharmaceutical company that makes the drug that is under study or is from the government who really wants that innovation to succeed.

My point is no matter what research you read, if the data can be reproduced and the way the data was obtained adheres to protocol, then the data must be considered worthy of a objective read but be wary of any bias that could have been introduced into the study.

Both sides of the issue here have good studies, but of course, each with their own bias - at times, a bit too obvious in its write-up.

The cleanup of the land will be the caveat to this issue. How much it will cost, how long it will take to fix the damage that may or not be there, will more than likely determine what is built or not built there.

No matter what side of the issue you are on, you have to hope the city doesn't sit on its hands and gets something done for the benefit of this city.

[El Chuco]

Who do you think is going to pay for the cleanup? EP Taxpayers of course. Based off what seems to be popular, they'll (City Council) approve another mall! You couldn't pay me to visit whatever gets put up there. It'll need several decades to ensure whatever contaminant was there is removed. A Riverwalk is definitely not something to build especially if you plan to link it to the Rio. Who knows what is contaminated by the river bed. Maybe UTEP can do something with it. Perform research, open another field of study.

[Marc]

Mike your blog is titled "brain drain" and the stance against ASARCO is the reason El Paso will continue to feel a brain drain. ASARCO would of been under strict environmental standards (much like many other refineries in the country)which it would have to adhear to in order to operate. You live in Houston and I am sure you have seen the amount of chemical refineries on the eastern edge of the city yet in checking with TCEQ Houstons air is as clean as El Paso, some years cleaner. BTW if you ever need anything, even a home cooked meal e-mail me or e-mail me and I will give you my number. I will always help out an other valley boy.

[citizen kane]

mike, hating that our city couldnt cut a deal with asarco to help move, pay some back tax money(they filed 11 and probably owed us money) or anything to help raise employment. our mayor and many councilman threw them to the wolves instead. any way its over. my suggestion for the site would be to move the train yard there instead of santa teresa. that area around canal could the be used to connect the border highway with paisano. that would also make this yard in a good position for l rail around the city. im not sure anyone would use lightight rail though. maybe use for bus and mas transit location also. riverwalks are a joke for this town. we are not san antonio. we have no alamo.
we dont even have juarez for visiors to go to with the drug war. now mr sanders who owns santa t. may would rather have the rail out there, but it seems to me that moving the rail yard to santa t., new mexico doesnt help el paso. it helps santa t, new mexico, and bill sanders.

[a nobody]

asarco still owns the land. maybe a sell to the fed govt. to move the train terminal and paying taxes up would be a way to collect. texas superfund could pay for the site to be cleaned , but the city of el paso would still have to purchase it.

[comment]

The EPA secretly let the Federal Dept. of Justice know back in 1998 that ASARCO had illegally burned toxic waste nearly ten years for profit. Then this was SEALED in a confidential document never intended for public eyes. We released that to the NYTimes in 2006.

Massive amounts of unknown hazardous wastes were railed up here from the port of Corpus Christi and the ASARCO subsidiary "encycle". God only knows what came out of ASARCO's stack during those years. No one will tell us.

We need to know.

[Mike.Arriaga]

Thanks Marc. How'd you know I was from the valley? And yes, Texas City is filled with power plants of all kinds, but I wonder if its true what they say about the water.

I think that an alternative energy plant could be good or something else that doesn't expose that many people to whatever is up there. A park, a museum and other public avenues are not the answer because in 25 -50 years, you'll have people filing lawsuits against the city claiming that they were exposed to harmful substances.

As for the cleanup process, I think thats Asarco's and the governments job and not the job of El Paso county. Making it a superfund site will be a huge black eye, but then again, it will draw researchers t to the site to investigate what is really down there with no bias.

[Robert Scott]

It should become a superfund site and we will(tax payers) have to pay for this "shovel ready" project.Once the area is mitigated move the train depot/yard there or an alternative power processing plant (if viable).

[Jaime]

what ever the city decides to do, they need to move quickly. If you wait like they did last time the price of copper will rebound as will the economy. Maybe not this year, but things will turn. When they do, ASARCO will push for another permit, which it had no problems getting this last time. EP needs to be proactive on this issue. Push whatever agenda it wants make it a mall a theatre, a park whatever, but do it fast, or we'll go through this again.

[jafo]

asarco owns the land and will do what they want with it unless they go from chapter 11 to chapter 7 sometime soon. we cant do anything about it now until asarco decides they want to do something. they may want to leave it as it is and maybe move some equipment to other sites like deming or silver city. there is no use in planning anything for it. we dont own it and probably never will.