Picher, Oklahoma was part of a
major lead mining area in the central US until the middle of the last century, when the
mines closed down. It is now the
epicenter of the
Tar Creek Superfund site. Residents live among mountains of
mine tailings known
as chat. Heavy metal poisoning is endemic in the area. With fits and starts, things do begin to get done about it, but only very slowly.
To add insult to injury, Picher was
struck by an
EF-4 tornado on May 10th, 2008. The residents are finally
suing over the long in
coming
buyout plan. Shockingly, the buyout plan was put into place with urgency not because of the lead, zinc, and cadmium poisoning,
but because the mines are
in danger of caving in. There is still word on when the
mountains of debris will be removed, or the acid mine drainage stopped. Despite attempts to prevent further contamination in the 1980s and 90s, the waste is still
poisoning local creeks and
wildlife.
posted by wierdo
on Apr 9, 2009 -
15 comments
Selling out is becoming
trendy. Last fall,
Burt’s Bees was sold to Clorox. It turned out then that former owner Roxanne Quimby bought out co-founder Burt himself in 1999 and sold 80% of the company to AEA Investors in 2004; this was just the final stroke of the pen.
[more inside]
posted by bassjump
on Jan 17, 2008 -
43 comments
y.ah.oo Del.icio.us bought by Yahoo. Another one bites the dust? I miss the days when del.icio.us was largely undocumented and was a somewhat underground, community-based project. What will the corporate buyout mean for everyone's favourite link sharing site?
posted by sid
on Dec 9, 2005 -
69 comments
Power Company Buys Entire Village American Electric Power is buying the Gallia County village of Cheshire, Ohio for $20 million after years of complaints from residents about pollution from AEP's massive Gen. James M. Gavin power plant, located along the Ohio River on the edge of the village.
Two months ago federal health experts reported that blue sulfuric clouds from the Gavin plant endangered the village last summer, particularly residents suffering from asthma. I'm not sure what to think about such an odd plan.
"I think the town just had enough of the company's experimentation," said Dale Heydlauff, AEP's senior vice president for environmental affairs.
Note: Registration required to read full story
.
posted by Blake
on Apr 16, 2002 -
3 comments
HP shareholders vote to acquire Compaq... or not? Stop me if you've heard this one before: One side has already declared victory while the other won't concede defeat until all the votes are counted. The margin appears to be less than one half of one percent, and a manual count is in the works.
posted by jjg
on Mar 19, 2002 -
4 comments
Dontcha hate it when something like
Winamp gets bought out by AOL? It crashes a bit too much on my home system so I went looking for alternatives and was glad when I found
FreeAMP (it's GPL'ed to boot!). Take the high road, use the mp3 player that guarantees no AOL buyouts on your desktop.
posted by mathowie
on Sep 23, 1999 -
0 comments
