There's a Price

I understand the urge to believe what you want to believe - it's only human -  but when do you draw the line? When is it time to say, "What else aren't you telling us?" It's high time to question authority at the Radford Army Ammo Plant because getting the whole truth out of them is like pulling teeth.

It was like navigating a corn maze to get officials, who ostensibly work for us, to acknowledge that the Corporate Operator of the Arsenal (the "CO" part of the GOCO in Government Owned, Corporately Operated ~ a cozy pre-WWII arrangement) i.e. BAE Systems is paid to dispose of tenants' hazardous waste. That would be our tax dollars there, folks -as in the Federal Government is paying for RAAP's numerous and expensive permits, upgrades, maintenance.....but BAE Systems gets to make money off of tenants by offering free waste disposal! Great deal if you can get it, huh?

Who really pays for the free hazardous waste disposal at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant? We do. We pay with the air the breathe, the water that gives life to this valley, the soil they befoul with lead and perchlorate and explosive wastes galore. We pay and BAE makes huge corporate profits. We pay and ATK gets to dispose of their waste as part of the deal. We pay for their waste disposal and nobody even bothers to tell us this is what we breathe here? Are you kidding me? 

What is being done at the Radford Army Ammunition Plant's Open Burning Ground is truly obscene, folks and the whole story is going to get a lot uglier as the truth comes to light.

Who profits? BAE Systems, the British company that the Department of Justice found guilty in 2010 of defrauding the U.S. government under the Foreign Corrupt Policies Act by violating the Arms Export Control Act. The record-setting fine of $400 million was imposed just one year before BAE Systems was awarded the contract to operate the Radford Army Ammunition Plant.

Of course, it couldn't have hurt to have Michael Chertoff on BAE's  Board of Directors when that guilty plea was made by BAE. His promotion to  Chairman of the Board in 2012 put him in a position to "usher through" the corporate interests of one of Britain's largest defense contractors in DC.

Tonight, we were told the two hazardous waste incinerators HWI at RAAP aren't actually for hazardous waste. Are they seriously claiming what is put in the incinerators is not hazardous waste, really?