DUELING ADS: The feud between Freeport-McMoRan and The Nation magazine
bled into the pages of the Austin American-Statesman last week. In a
full-page ad in the local daily on September 18, the SOS Legal Defense Fund
reprinted a July 31 Nation piece skewering Freeport and its gold mine
operations in Irian Jaya, Indonesia. The article, “Freeport-McMoRan at Home and
Abroad,” ran in its entirety in our local daily, detailing the company’s
alleged involvement in murders and human rights abuses of indigenous people on
its mine site.
Four days later, on September 22, Freeport fired off a full-page ad of its own
in the daily to discredit the Nation article and Eyal Press, the
reporter who wrote it. Freeport’s ad included a letter-to-the-editor published
in The Nation‘s most recent issue from Freeport senior vice-president
Thomas Egan. Egan’s response listed several allegations by Eyal Press that Egan
claimed were inaccurate.
Naturally, Freeport didn’t print Press’ point-by-point rebuttal of Egan’s
letter in their ad. For example, Egan contended that Press got it wrong when he
wrote that Freeport security guards in Indonesia amuse themselves by firing
randomly at passing tribesman. “The truth is the security workers do not have
guns,” contended Egan. In his rebuttal, however, Press backed up his reporting
with an anecdote from a Western traveler who told him about being held in a
cell for several hours by armed Freeport guards. Press added, “The April 5
Australian Council for Overseas Aid report, based entirely on local sources,
goes further, charging that Freeport security used guns when they joined
Indonesian soldiers and opened fire on a peaceful flag-raising ceremony this
past Christmas.”
Press conceded only one point to Egan: that the Statesman, not
Freeport, flew former Statesman reporter Bill Collier to Indonesia.
Press clarified: “Freeport flew him around upon arrival – `spectacular’ rides
Collier described in the puff pieces he wrote about Freeport just before taking
his current job as a P.R. flack for the company.” –A.D.
A TAXING AGENDA: Capital Metro board member Paul Drummond’s one-man campaign to
have the board reconsider the quarter-cent sales tax increase was almost
quashed for good last week. After a legal tussle over whether Drummond needed
support from a second board member to get an item on the agenda of Monday’s
meeting, Cap Met spokesman Howard Goldman had assured Drummond that the
proposal would appear on the agenda. Yet it was missing from the copy of the
agenda sent to board members last Wednesday. “I think everybody was pretty much
in shock,” says Drummond. “[Capital Metro Chairman of the Board] Harry Jones
forbid it from being placed on the agenda.”
Two days later, after KVET radio talk show host Eric Blumberg broadcast
details of the agenda fight on the air, Jones relented. “If you have an issue
like this, where someone is communicating on the radio, you have to bring it to
a head and get rid of it,” Jones explains. “I wish Drummond had gone at it a
different way.” Jones adds that Drummond had no legal standing to revisit the
tax issue, because he originally voted against it. (Jones voted in favor.)
Drummond’s efforts may not have amounted to much; on Monday, his
motion died without a vote. But Drummond says it was important to try to
reverse next month’s tax increase. “All of our performance measures indicate
that we are not doing a good job,” he says. “Before talking about raising the
tax rate we should get our operations in order.”
In the end, though, the $133.3 million budget was approved 6-1,
with Drummond as the lone dissenter. The tax increase brings to one full cent
the amount of sales tax revenue that goes to the transit authority. The
increase will mean an additional $19 million for Cap Met’s budget.
By the way, although the board signed off on a deal to lease 30
buses next summer to the Atlanta Committee for the Olympic Games, Capital Metro
General Manager Michael Bolton announced at Monday’s meeting that he would try
to renegotiate the agreement. It seems that Cap Met will receive only $120 per
vehicle for 20 days of use, while transportation officials in Dallas and
Houston were able to secure similar deals for two to three times as much. – A.D.
OZONE ALERT: Texas cities are logging record ozone levels. Houston has 41
violations of federal ozone standards – double the number of high ozone days
that occurred last year. Dallas-Ft. Worth, which had hoped to erase its name
from the Environmental Protection Agency’s “dirty air list,” has instead
exceeded federal air pollution limits 15 times already this year. According to
federal rules, this should move D-FW from the “moderate” category for
non-attainment of air quality up to the “severe” status currently applied to
Houston. The federal ozone limit is 120ppb (parts per billion). If a city
exceeds this limit three times in one year, they are in violation and may be
considered a non-attainment city candidate. For Dallas and other Texas cities,
this could mean a whole slate of new federal restrictions on pollution in the
metroplex and expansion of the anti-pollution rules from the current
three-county area to a 12-county region around D-FW.
Beaumont-Port Arthur, with 12 violations, could join Houston and
Dallas-Ft.Worth in the severe non-attainment category. Longview, with three
violations this summer, is a new member of the non-attainment club, making it
one of the nation’s smallest cities (population 75,000) in violation of federal
air standards. This month Corpus Christi had two ozone violations, meaning that
it will become non-attainment at the next violation. And though Austin has not
exceeded the limit this year, it has already exceeded 100ppb 10 times, compared
with three times for all of last year.
The Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission (TNRCC), the state agency
entrusted with preserving air quality, appears to be more concerned with
convincing the EPA to hold off on enforcement of federal air standards in
Texas. The TNRCC is arguing that the EPA should consider this an “exceptional
year” because of unusually stagnant wind conditions that encourage ozone
production. The EPA is postponing judgment on the TNRCC argument until the end
of the ozone season, but is under increasing pressure from Governor George W.
Bush and Republican congressional representatives from Dallas and Houston to
delay enforcement of ozone standards in Texas. – N.E.
ERSKINE UPDATE: The federal lawsuit filed by Midge and Woody Erskine against
the city of Midland finally reached the courthouse last week, and the Midland
couple believe they presented a good case. “I feel like we have a super chance
of winning,” says Mrs. Erskine. The couple, who are avid birdwatchers and
wildlife rehabilitators, are fighting the city’s demand that they cut down all
the habitat they have grown on their four-acre homestead over the past 25
years. They presented testimony from seven expert witnesses, including
officials from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Audubon Society,
and others, that their property has been a valuable resource for wildlife.
The non-jury trial lasted four days, with U.S. District Judge Royal Ferguson
presiding. Attorneys will present closing arguments on October 2, and file
briefs shortly thereafter. The judge is expected to make a decision in three to
four months. – R.B. CHALK ONE UP FOR THE SALAMANDER: An independent report commissioned by the
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) on the status of the Barton Springs
Salamander found that the species is threatened from potential overdevelopment.
The report, which was released Monday, was compiled by leading experts, most of
whom live outside of Texas; its objective nature could bolster the proposal by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the salamander as an endangered
species. The report represents the TPWD’s first effort to establish an
independent peer review process for endangered species issues. The team of five independent scientists who submitted the report included an
amphibian ecologist from the University of Oklahoma and a geo-hydrologist from
a private consulting firm in Orlando, Florida. Local experts provided data to
the team members, who toured the watershed in which the salamanders live. The
team was specifically asked not to make recommendations about the proposed
listing, but to focus on biological, ecological, and hydrological conditions
surrounding the salamanders. The TPWD is using the independent report to
underline the need to reduce the potential for chemical spills and
sedimentation in the watershed.
The report, which can be reviewed at the main desk of the TPWD at 4200 Smith
School Road, includes 45 specific recommendations. A public meeting to allow
interested parties to ask questions is scheduled for 1-4pm, Saturday, September
30 in the Lower Colorado River Authority board room at 3701 Lake Austin Blvd. – A.D.
This article appears in September 29 • 1995 and September 29 • 1995 (Cover).