Slabwatchdog frontgroup?

Is Slabwatchdog.com a corporate front group?
Upon initial investigation they appear to be a traditional environmental group, however under closer scrutiny it becomes clear that they they anything but transparent and are hiding who they represent, how they are funded, and who makes the policy decisions they are advocating for.

When first learning about a new issue it helps to understand exactly who is advocating for and against the issue.

On the Slabwatchdog.org website they proclaim: SLAB Watchdog is a non-governmental organization dedicated to eliminating the environmental danger and community health issues caused by the foreign recycling of Spent Lead Acid Batteries (SLABs).

Well what does non-governmental organization mean? Is Slabwatchdog.com a lobbying group,or a political actions committee? How are they organized? Are they a corporation? For-profit or Non-profit? Do they have a board of directors or an advisory group? None of this organizational information is disclosed on their website.

So I became curious..... Are they registered with local or state governments? Nothing with the Alexandria Chamber of Commerce or the Virginia State Corporation Commission.

On the About tab on Slabwatchdog.com it says Located in Virginia, SLAB Watchdog relies on growing support from environmental groups, worker organizations, and other activists to stop foreign recycling. I wondered who are the environmental groups, worker organizations and other activists that are supporting them? They have a several prominent national environmental groups and labor organizations listed as "likes" on their facebook page but nothing demonstrating any two way connections or actual support.

If you have any questions please contact our Director, Diane L. Cullo at diane@slabwatchdog.com Who is Diane L. Cullo? A google search reveals that she is the owner of an Alexandria Virginia Public Relations firm DLC Communications. She was also a 2004 Bush Appointee as the executive director of the President's Advisory Board on Tribal Colleges and Universities. 

So here is something. Slabwatchdog.com is run by a longtime PR professional who was previously appointed to serve in one of the most environmentally hostile Republican administrations in American history. The next step was to find out who is producing the slick website.

Slabwatchdog.com is listed in the portfolio of the Alexandria, VA online public relations firm Campaign Solutions. A review of their clients reveals that they have worked for the presidential campaigns of Michele Bachmann, McCain-Palin, and Bush Cheney.

Now the picture is getting clearer. A Republican pr firm specializing in political campaigns creates a grassroots campaign (for a client?) and recruits a republican PR person to be the public face.Now where it gets interesting is following the money. Slabwatchdog is spending money yet they have no disclosed means of support.

Slabwatchdog.com- Follow the Money...
Follow the Money is as useful a directive today as it was back in the early 1970's when it became the famous phrase used by the source "Deep Throat" in the investigation of the Watergate break in.

We have established the connection between Slabwatchdog.com and the Republican online consulting firm Campaign Solutions. This firm was founded and is headed by Becki Donatelli who has an extensive record. As Chief Internet Consultant to John McCain’s two presidential races, she directed the online campaigns.... During the 2008 cycle, her team raised an unprecedented $100 million online for Sen. McCain’s election.

She also lives in Alexandria, Virginia with her husband Frank Donatelli who has a long history with Republican politics. He was a political aide in the Reagan Whitehouse and was selected by John McCain to be the deputy chairman of the Republican National Committee during the 2008 presidential election.

So we have a clear connection from Slabwatchdog.com to a serious Republican power couple at the top of the McCain/Palin campaign in 2008.

Slabwatchdog.com mentions two companies involved with the lead recycling industry: the Doe Run Company, and the RSR Corporation, each with a different proprietary industrial process. Let's take a closer look at these companies.

The Doe Run Company is one of the world's largest lead producers. It is wholly owned by the Renco Group which is in turn wholly owned by family trusts established by the company's Chairman and CEO, Ira Rennert.

Ira Rennert made his fortune in junk bonds  and is reported to own the largest house  in the U.S. Ira Rennert and the Renco Group were also a big contributors to the McCain 2008 campaign and the RNC. Both he and his wife made the maximum personal contribution, and were a top twenty contributor ($192,200 to the RNC). Now we have connected the firm holding the leash on Slabwatchdog.org to the controller of a company (Doe Run) feeding the Slabwatchdog.

Let's turn our attention to the RSR Corporation.They are one of the largest lead smelters in the US, and also recycle lead components, polypropylene plastic battery cases, and battery acids in lead-acid batteries. RSR Corp. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Quexco Incorporated and is controlled by Chairman and CEO Howard M. Meyers. In addition to his other civic engagements Howard serves on the Board of Overseers of New York University's, Stern School of Business with amongst others, Renco Group Chairman Ira Rennert.

Is Slabwatchdog.com a frontgroup? Looking at what we have uncovered: There is a strong connection between the McCain online fundraising firm managing their website (Campaign Solutions) and the two corporations championed on their website.

Both RSR Corp,and Doe Run are controlled by privately held parent companies- (Renco Group and Quexco Inc.) whose chairman serve on the Board of NYU's business school, and of which one (Renco Group) was a major Republican donor to the 2008 McCain campaign. The interesting question is what are they really up to? Slabwatchdog’s campaign seems designed to promote their interests, but why? They aren’t doing this because they care about the environment or are themselves particularly “Green” players. What is their purpose ? What is their business objective?

Slabwatchdog.com a toxic greenwasher?
Greenwashing is a form of spin in which green PR or green marketing is deceptively used to promote the perception that a company's policies or products are environmentally friendly.

Slabwatchdog.com is the curiously opaque website masquerading as an environmental group. Examining the environmental history of the first of these two corporations it seems that Slabwatchdog is fronting for them by providing a "green" patina to cover their operations in this notoriously toxic industry.

The RSR corporation is one of the largest lead smelters in the US, and also recycles lead components, polypropylene plastic battery cases, and battery acids. RSR Corp. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Quexco Incorporated and is controlled by Chairman and CEO Howard M. Meyers.

RSR has a long record of toxic environmental pollution at its facilities. In Dallas Texas, the notorious RSR Superfund Site was one of the most polluted sites in the country.

''West Dallas residents celebrated when the Clinton Administration declared last May that they live in the largest lead-contaminated Superfund site in the United States. Portions of one of the nation's biggest housing projects and five schools, all located within five square miles of a now-defunct lead smelter, are slated for cleanup (although Federal Environmental Protection Agency records indicate as much as sixteen square miles of West Dallas are contaminated).''

The federal government ordered a $13.25 million(2003) penalty for RSR Corporation and its subsidiaries for pollution in West Dallas. It also required cleanup at the site valued at $11.6 million, and reimbursement to the state of costs in the amount of $870,000.

In Seattle Washington, Quemetco, an RSR subsidiary was linked to substantial environmental damage and another Superfund site. They agreed to pay $8.5 million (2006) to resolve liability for cleanup costs relating to the contamination of Harbor Island in Puget Sound.

In the city of Industry California, Quemetco, paid $70,000 (2007) in fines for air quality violations to State pollution Control agencies.

In Indianapolis Indiana, Two Quexco affiliates, Quemetco Inc. and RSR Corp., plead guilty to dumping pollutants from lead-smelting operations into the Indianapolis sewer system and agreed to pay a fine of $1.5 million.(1995) Four employees, including a senior vice-president, pleaded guilty in the same case and two of them were sentenced to a year and a day in prison.

Quexco and its affiliates (RSR and Quemetco) certainly could use some positive environmental credibility. We will next examine the environmental record of the Doe Run Company and see if they would also benefit from some "Greenwashing".

The Doe Run Company is one of the largest lead producers in the world. It also has a well-documented and decades old history as a bad environmental actor in (Missouri) and Peru

Here is just a sample of how they have operated over the last several decades.

They have poisoned their own workers and then denied them required medical leave. In (February 1988), Doe Run was fined $2.78 million for OSHA violations including exposing workers to high levels of lead and then dismissing them to sidestep Government medical leave requirements.

Doe Run’s haphazard trucking practices spread contaminated lead dust on public roads throughout the community. In (September 2001), the Missouri Department of Natural Resources issued an order to Cease and Desist to Doe Run.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources (department) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA have recently learned of very high levels of lead contamination along public streets in Herculaneum that Doe Run uses as haul roads. Lead contamination along these roads, in yards and playgrounds, and in ambient air has prompted the Missouri Department of Health to conclude the situation poses a clear and present danger and an imminent and substantial endangerment to the citizens of Herculaneum, especially young children and pregnant women. As a result the department is ordering the Doe Run Company to immediately abate all violations and cease and desist the activities causing or contributing to the contamination along the streets of Herculaneum.

The contamination of Herculaneum also came from Doe Run’s smelting operations. In April 2002, Doe Run agrees to pay a($1,000,000) civil fine and Federal and State agencies signed an agreement listing mandatory actions to be taken by the company including the buy-out of 160 contaminated homes in Herculaneum.

Recently Doe Run agreed to spend approximately $65 million to correct violations of environmental laws at ten of its lead mining, milling and smelting facilities in Missouri. The (10.08.2010) settlement also requires the company to pay a $7 million civil penalty.

One of the most polluted places on earth.

Doe Run purchased the smelting operation in La Oroya, Peru in 1997. Since 1922, adults and children in this mining town in the Peruvian Andes have been exposed to the toxic emissions and wastes from the plant which has been largely responsible for the dangerously high lead levels found in children's blood. Surveys conducted by the Peruvian Ministry of Health in 1999 revealed blood lead levels among local children to be dangerously high, (triple the World Health Organization) limit. Neurologists at local hospitals state that even newborn children have high blood lead levels, inherited while still in the womb.

Although Doe Run did not start the contamination in La Oroya, the company has certainly contributed to the problem that it inherited. ''Today, the Doe Run smelter emits about 1,000 tons of toxic pollution into the community daily. The company has largely delayed major actions that would clean up and/or significantly lessen the pollution, and the Peruvian national government has been more than lenient with the corporation. One of the most odious instances of this negligence came after Doe Run's attempt to postpone their environmental responsibilities "due to financial hardship," even though the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission showed that the company sent ($130 million) in "commissions and consulting fees" back to its headquarters in St. Louis.''

Non- profit advocates have documented that under Doe Run Management, pollution at La Oroya has gotten worse. Through a careful review of the (emission data) sent by Doe Run to the Energy and Mining Ministry, has shown that the pollution has increased; for example, the sulfur dioxide has climbed to near a 300% due to production increases and that heavy metal gas concentrations have increased in the air: Lead, 1,160%, Cadmium, 1,990%, and Arsenic, 606%.

It seems that Slabwatchdog.com is providing green credentials and cover for RSR and Doe Run, two toxic corporations responsible for some of the most polluted locations in North And South America. Perhaps instead of talking a good game about industry best practices, protecting the environment, and workers health they should review that noted physician Hippocrates who when writing on Epidemics said:

The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future - must mediate these things, and have two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely, to do good or to do no harm.