Tag: toxic waste

It was just last month that the world learned how Tom "Jonathan" Athans, a former (and failed) liberal radio talk show host and the husband of Michigan's junior US Senator, Debbie Stabenow, was being employed illegally as a lobbyist for a scandal plagued Detroit casino baron.  

After the initial reports of Athans' most recent illegality both he and his boss sort of faded into the ether.  It didn't help that what the man was actively lobbying for (again, in violation of federal law) and his family profiting from had been specifically and explicitly opposed by Senator Stabenow during her re-election bid in 2006.  

At issue were, and are, hazardous waste wells in the city of Romulus.  Athans' boss wants to dump a bunch of highly toxic foreign waste into sites that were closed years ago and he figured there was no one better to take his case to lawmakers in Lansing and DC than the husband of a United States Senator with a record of saying very "green" things.  

By way of recap:

In 2006 the Senator ran for reelection on a platform that included an elimination of the importation of Canadian garbage.  Her campaign website still reads:

Continue the Fight to Stop the Importation of Canadian Trash

Continue to work with EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt to enforce an existing treaty to stop the importation of Canadian Trash, and restrict the importation of trash through stronger enforcement measures at the Northern Border.

Meanwhile, she and her husband were profiting from efforts to do exactly the opposite. The Ivory Tower reported last month:

Athans, working on behalf of Detroit businessman Dimitrios (Jim) Papas, spent months urging public officials to reopen the wells, despite not being registered as a lobbyist in Michigan.  He finally registered Jan. 29...

Stabenow has declined to comment this entire time, leaving taxpayers, residents and potential criminal investigators with more questions than answers.  Like, how long did she know her husband was breaking the law?  How much of Papas's money was deposited into her bank account?  (In other words, how much did she profit, financially, from her husband's criminal enterprise?)  How does she reconcile her public statements with her families actual activities?  Why doesn't her walk match her talk?

With the EPA set to meet the middle of next month to discuss the Stabenow / Athans / Papas Toxic Waste Importation Plan, the city of Romulus itself is getting a jump on the action and giving residents a venue to voice their displeasure.  According to this morning's Detroit News:

"Some people believe once it was shut down that they had been shut down for good ... and there was going to be nothing there," said Timothy Keyes, the city's economic development director.

"Everybody's really uncomfortable with this potentially reopening again."

In 2006, the facility was shuttered after federal inspectors found more than 20 violations at the site near Interstate 94 and Middle Belt.

This is what the Stabenow family was profiting illegally from promoting... a toxic waste injection program with a history of over 20 violations that already caused it once to be shuttered.

And we still get neither a peep from Senator Stabenow, her husband or a newspaper or TV reporter willing to ask them a tough question.

Well if the press won't bother to get a piece of Senator Stabenow's mind, something tells me folks in Romulus will be offering HER a large and angry piece of theirs.