[] TL: KNOCK-OUT AT TYBOUTS CORNER:LAWYERS 10 - ENVIRONMENT 0 SO: Bob Lyons, Greenpeace (GP) DT: September 15, 1991 Keywords: toxics legal illegal environmentalists delaware us du pont gm ici hoechst hazadous waste landfills problems gp / QUESTION: Why did Washington get all the lawyers, and Delaware all the toxic waste? ANSWER: Delaware had first choice. -------------------------------- Few people have heard of Tybouts Corner. It's a cross-roads community in Delaware. It's also where the world's biggest corporations took a stand against paying for their pollution. Perhaps Tybouts will some day be ranked right up there with other famous battlegrounds like Waterloo. What a party it was! Everybody was there: Du Pont, General Motors, Amoco, the german giant Hoechst, England's ICI chemical company, the American Petroleum Institute - all denying responsibility see for a landfill leaking deadly chemicals at Tybouts Corner. Ten years earlier, in 1980, the U.S. Congress passed legislation with a principle both startling and naive: companies who made billions of dollars in profits should pay to cleanup their toxic bi-products. The law was called "Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 ("CERCLA"). This legislation was to "provide for liability, compensation, cleanup, and emergency response for hazardous substances released into the environment and the cleanup of inactive hazardous waste disposal sites,". [Footnote: Pub. L. No. 96-510, Stat. 2767 (1980) ] CERCLA stipulated that owners, operators, and dumpers at hazardous waste sites must pay for the cleanup, and allowed a company or municipality to be held liable for it's past actions. The Environment Protection Agency was to enforce CERCLA, and after a costly investigation at Tybouts Corner, attempted to do so. While the principle was simple, enforcement was not. The initial suit was brought against contractor William Ward, and against ICI Americas, along with its subsidiary, Stauffer Chemicals. ICI - one of the world's largest chemical companies - protested that dozens of other corporations had dumped at Tybouts. ICI lawyers brought in dozens of companies, one muncipality, and the State of Delaware, as "third party defendants", creating one of the most complex legal battles ever seen, in a nation famous for never-ending legal battles. EACH of these companies entered up to 25 separate defenses, attempting to get off the hook, or get the EPA's suit dropped altogether. Tybouts Corner became the showcase battle of wills between Congress and the giants of American industry, who disliked the new rules. Most of the defenses involved finger-pointing ("they did it too"; "they let me do it"; "they never told me it was wrong to poison the environment"; etc.) - all dressed up in very legal technicalities. It is debatable which opponent was bigger. Adding up the joint assets and profits of some of the world's largest companies (General Motors, Chrysler, IBM, ICI, etc.) takes us into the stratosphere: trillions of dollars. It's likely that the companies rallying at Tybouts have more money, and therefore better lawyers, than the government of the American people. On December 23rd, 1989 the Department of Justice announced a big victory: consent decress from 21 companies, allowing the E.P.A. to recover about $20 million from the companies - supposedly 93% of the cleanup costs. No mention is made of the horrendous legal costs, nor the thousands of office hours behind the case. The settlement didn't put too many lawyers out of work. The case of Tybouts Corner just migrated to a new batch of lawyers: the corporations and their insurance companies are still (as of June, 91) duking it out in court over who pays the bill. And what about ICI, the original company sued over Tybouts? ICI had net profits in 1990 of $1,255,000,000. That's 1.25 billion dollars profit in one year. Manufacturing chemicals is really, really profitable, especially when society picks up the tab for toxics waste. At Tybouts the government won the battle and lost the war. The intimidating legal fight over Tybouts Corner cast a shadow across environment enforcement everywhere. The message is clear: ask the producers of toxic waste to pay and see what happens - millions of dollars in legal fees down the drain. In fact, the media reported that more money was spent on legal cases to enforce the law, than was ever spent cleaning up the environment. It is a new form of toxic waste. We've heard of "blood money"; now we have "toxic money". Toxic money buys luxury cars, and condos in Spain, just like profits from any other organized crime. It just can't buy America a safe glass of water. No matter who wins technically, the sure losers are the environment and the American public. Even when the EPA gets money, it spends millions on incineration and other unworkable technologies. The idea that tons of toxic waste leaking into a water table can be "cleaned up" is a fraud, a billion dollar boondoggle. Producing toxic waste must be made SO costly that chemical companies will LOSE MONEY IF THEY MAKE DEADLY CHEMICALS. The only winners at Tybouts are the lawyers. After the court room, how do these guys sleep at night? ==================== LAWYERS WHO DEFEND CORPORATE POLLUTERS For the record, when a future generation asks, here are the lawyers (95% men) who jointly made millions of dollars excusing corporate America's toxic legacy at Tybouts Corner: DEFENDERS OF THE MAJORS WILLIAM H. ALLEN, WILLIAM F. GREANEY, MARTIN WALD, Covington & Burling, Washington, DC, Attorneys for E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Company, ICI Americas, Inc., International Business Machines Corporation, Olin Corporation, The American Petroleum Institute, and The Chemical Manufacturers Association, Amici Curiae. DEFENDERS OF STAUFFER CHEMICAL (ICI AMERICAS subdidiary) Jeffrey B. Bove, Esquire, of Connolly, Bove, Lodge & Hutz, Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel: John W. Wilmer, Jr., of Vorys, Sater, Seymour & Pease, Washington, D.C.; Wendy J. Tish, Esquire, of Stauffer Chemical Company, Westport, Connecticut; Attorneys for Defendant/Third-Party Plaintiff Stauffer Chemical Company. DEFENDERS OF ICI AMERICAS Joseph C. Kelly, Esquire, of ICI Americas, Inc., Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel: Robert Hayes, Esquire, Denis V. Brenan, Esquire, of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Attorneys for Defendant/Third-PartyPlaintiff ICI Americas Inc. DEFENDERS OF AVON PRODUCTS David R. Hodas, Esquire, Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel: J. Brian Molloy, Esquire, of Wald, Harkrader & Ross, Washington, D.C.; Attorneys for Third-Party Defendant Avon Products, Inc. DEFENDERS OF GENERAL MOTORS James T. McKinstry, Esquire, of Richards, Layton & Finger, Wilmington, Delaware; Attorney for Third-Party Defendants NVF Company, General Motors Corporation and Diamond Shamrock. DEFENDERS OF HERCULES CHEMICALS Henry N. Herndon, Jr., Esquire of Morris, James, Hitchens & Williams, Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel: Kevin E. Walsh, Esquire, of Hercules Incorporated, Wilmington, Delaware; Attorneys for Third-Party Defendant Hercules, Incorporated. DEFENDERS OF STANDARD CHLORINE John C. Laager, Esquire, of Saul, Ewing, Remick & Saul, Wilmington, Delaware; Attorney for Third-Party Defendant Standard Chlorine of Delaware, Inc. DEFENDERS OF HOECHST C. Scott Reese, Esquire, of Cooch & Taylor, Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel:Nancy Long, Esquire, of Morgan, Melhuish, Monaghan, Meyer, Arvidson, Arbrutzer &Liskowski, New York, New York; Attorneys for Third-Party Defendant American Hoechst Corporation. DEFENDERS OF DU PONT Richard Allen Paul, Esquire, and Pamela Meitner, Esquire of E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co., Wilmington, Delaware; Attorney for Third-Party Defendant E. I. DuPont de Nemours & Co. DEFENDERS OF ALLIED CORP David C. Toomey, Esquire and Robert F. Stewart, Jr., Esquire of Duane, Morris& Heckscher, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Attorney for Third-Party Defendants Motor Wheel Corporation and Allied Corporation. DEFENDERS OF WILLMINGTON CHEMICAL Stephen P. Lamb, Esquire, of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, Wilmington, Delaware; Attorney for Wilmington Chemical Corporation. DEFENDERS OF CHRYSLER Kurt J. Doelze, Esquire, of Ferri & Doelze, Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel:Joseph Armao, Esquire, Harry A. Short, Jr., Esquire, Kevin J. Connors, Esquire, of Liebert, Short, Fitzpatrick & Hirschland, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Attorneys for Third-Party Defendant Chrysler Corporation. DEFENDERS OF AMOCO Howard M. Berg, Esquire of Howard M. Berg & Associates, Wilmington, [**4] Delaware; Of Counsel: Ronald J. Ganim, Esquire of Amoco Corporation, Chicago, Illinois; Attorneys for Third-Party Defendant Amoco Corporation. DEFENDERS OF KOPPERS John C. Phillips, Jr., Esquire, of Phillips & Snyder, Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel: Jill M. Blundon, Esquire, of Koppers Company, Inc., Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Attorneys for Third-Party Defendant Koppers Company, Inc. DEFENDERS OF CHLORAMONE CORP John W. Noble, Esquire, of Parkowski, Noble & Guerke, Dover, Delaware; Attorney for Third-Party Defendant Chloramone Corporation. DEFENDERS OF FMC CORP John C. Phillips, Jr., Esquire, of Phillips & Snyder, Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel: William R. Herman, Esquire, Bradford Whitman, Esquire, of Dechert Price & Rhoads, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Attorneys for Third-Party Defendant FMC Corporation. DEFENDERS OF KENNECOTT Robert J. Katzenstein, Esquire of Lassen, Smith, Katzenstein & Furlow, Wilmington, Delaware; Of Counsel: Stephen W. Miller, Esquire, of Clark, Ladner, Fortenbaugh & Young, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Attorneys for Third-Party Defendant Kennecott Corporation. ==================== There were scores more lawyers at Tybouts, representing insurance companies, (who were also not to blame); and smaller companies (don't blame them either); and lesser governments (who had no authority). The poisoning of earth is well past the stage of assigning blame. And apparently past the stage where laws can save us. Here we have an Act of Congress which says "we don't care what other laws went before - business did it, business made money at it, business can pay for the clean up". And ten years later, lawyers squeeze out a couple of million bucks, for one property, out of the billion dollar profits made by the big corporations. It's probably less than the advertising budgets where the same companies claim to be environmentalists. It's certainly less than their legal bills. Lawyers 10. Environment nothing. -30-[Greenbase Inventory September 15, 1991 ] =======#=======