GREEN PARTY OF DELAWARE
MEDIA ADVISORY
For immediate release:
Monday, April 8, 2002
Green Party
Candidate for Attorney General Vivian Houghton Denounces DNREC Response to
Sunoco Pollution
Houghton Calls for DNREC to Strictly
Enforce Delaware Environmental Laws to Bring An Immediate End to Massive
Air Pollution
Contact:
Newark - - Vivian Houghton, Green Party
Candidate for Delaware Attorney General, denounced the tepid response by
the Delaware Department of Natural Resources (DNREC) to the release of
massive amounts of sulfur dioxide into the air in Claymont. "DNREC
has a history of failing to move decisively to curtail pollution by
Delaware's large chemical companies," Houghton stated, then added,
"Sunoco should cease operations until it can dispose of its
chemical wastes without causing health-threatening air pollution. Delaware
needs an Attorney General who will be pro-active in enforcing
environmental laws."
Houghton's comments were made in
response to last Friday¹s (4/5/02) General Chemical's processing boiler
break down leaving it unable to process sulfur-containing waste from the
Sunoco oil refinery. Sunoco, rather than shutting down, continued to
operate and resorted to burning the waste, releasing approximately 20 tons
of sulfur dioxide each day into the air. The air pollution continues
today.
Houghton insisted that DNREC's
oversight failure with regard to this issue is part of a state trend in
which both the criminal justice system and agencies designed to serve
residents display an obsequiousness to the powerful. In this context
she cited DNREC's softness on Delaware's polluters as similar to the
criminal justice system's relative coziness with white-collar criminals,
in contrast to its strictness with less favored sections of the population
- for instance, the African-American community, low-income whites, etc.
"Just as Sunoco should cease operations until it can safely dispose
of its chemical waste," Houghton said, "so the criminal justice
system should investigate its internal biases of being so quick to hand
out tougher sentences to minorities and low-income people than to
better-off constituencies."
Cornelius "C" Deleston, a
General Motors employee at Wilmington's Saturn plant, echoed this concern.
"It's Sunoco one day, another company the next. They pay fines
but the fines are so small that the companies keep right on polluting.
On the other hand, when these companies lay off workers, they do to
the workers what DNREC refuses to do to the polluters: get rid of them.
Tell me, what's fair about that? While people suffer, the companies
do whatever they want. They violate their workers' trust, fire or
lay off people, and poison our air and water."
"The Delaware Clean Air Council should
be commended for its plans to sue Sunoco, but if DNREC was doing its job a
citizen suit would not be needed, "commented Alan Muller, Executive
Director of Green Delaware, an activist group. Green Delaware plans
to bring a suit against the City of Wilmington for its failure to warn
citizens about the dumping of raw sewage into the Brandywine and Christina
Rivers. "We need to strengthen our environmental laws and enforce
the laws now on the books," stated Muller. "The Attorney General¹s
job is to enforce Delaware laws on behalf of the people of our state, not
special interests. The people of Delaware are suffering
unnecessarily from cancer and other serious illnesses brought on by
pollution."
Nick Galasso, a Green Party member,
expressed similar sentiments. "DNREC," he remarked,
"is pretty good at going after the small individual but when it comes
to the big polluters like Sunoco, Motiva, and Indian River Power Plant,
DNREC's record of law enforcement is dismal. Vivian Houghton will
change this. Whether as polluters, financial sleight-of-hand
artists, or centers of anti-worker planning, Delaware's corporations will
be held accountable for their actions."
Houghton will formally announce her
candidacy for Attorney General on 4/29/02 in a series of statewide press
conferences.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Robert Bohm, Coordinator
Committee to Elect Vivian Houghton Attorney General
(302) 239-2572 rebsalerno@msn.com
Green Party of Delaware
http://www.gpde.org
Green Party of the United States
http://greenpartyus.org
END
|
