Union Carbide's Red Scare

A Union Carbide executive has charged that Citizen's Clearinghouse for Hazardous Waste (CCHW), one of the nation's largest grassroots environmental organizations, has ties to the Communist Party. The remarks were made by Clyde H. Greenert, a director in the company's public Affairs Group, in an internal Union Carbide memo dated November 14, 1989. Greenert wrote the memo to advise his colleagues that CCHW is "one of the most radical coalitions operating under the environmental banner."

CCHW is directed by Lois Gibbs. Gibbs is a long-time environmentalist who gained national recognition during the late 1970s and early 1980s when she led her community in Niagara Falls, New York in a fight against Hooker Chemical and the hazardous dumpsite known as Love Canal.

Will Collete, CCHW's organizing director, says that the organization's affiliates have been fighting Carbide in numerous locations throughout the country. He believes that Carbide may be trying new approaches, including intimidation of this sort, to counter environmental organizations. Since "virtually all of the nasty old strategies that bad guys have come up with in the 1980s have failed, ... they are spending a lot of money trying to figure out new strategies," Collete said.

Greenert's memo included a CCHW plan of action. He wrote that "the attached agenda, ... if accomplished in total, would restructure U.S. society into something unrecognizable and probably unworkable." According to Collete, the dangerous goals listed in the CCHW agenda are to "make toxics a priority public issue, [encourage] corporate and government accountability, stop pollution, promote prevention, broaden the movement, include all environmental hazards, but maintain control and autonomy."

Fraud at Cargill

Cargill Inc., the nation's largest, privately owned corporation, faces lawsuits from an organization of chicken growers and the Justice Department stemming from allegedly fraudulent chicken weighing methods that cost growers millions of dollars. (See MM July/August 1988) Last year, Cargill admitted using false weights for thirteen months, and paid 104 Florida farmers $300,000 in compensation. Some of the growers, however, allege that Cargill has actually been falsifying weights for closer to 10 years and have requested further compensation.

Gerald J. Houlihan, an attorney representing the Northeast Florida Broiler Growers' Association, the organization filing suit, says the complaint alleges that Cargill "intentionally falsified these weights, that it was done with the knowledge, consent and encouragement of management and that the net result was to cheat the farmers out of money." Houlihan adds that the lawsuit is "as close to a criminal complaint as you can get." The growers are asking for more than $10 million compensation.

The Justice Department suit focuses on the Cargill dismissal of a grower because of his participation in the Growers' Association complaint. Cargill told the Wall Street Journal that it prefers not to do business with a grower "who is falsely charging the company with racketeering, theft and fraud." The justice Department is asking for the reinstatement of the grower, Arthur Caskins, president of the Northeast Florida Broilers' Association and alleges that the central issue is whether Cargill, as the "intentional wrongdoer who has cheated poultry growers out of hundreds of thousands of dollars in back pay can, through threats, intimidation and retaliatory termination, force the growers to choose between pursuing their livelihood or their lawsuit."

Battling Bad Batteries

A recent study conducted under the auspices of the Greater Detroit Society for the Blind estimates that 6,000 to 10,000 persons per year suffer eye injuries resulting from exploding car batteries. The survey, involving thousands of ophthalmologists and hospitals throughout the United States, arrived at these figures with statistical methods the Society claims were "as conservative as possible." The survey results are part of a petition to set safety standards for car batteries that was rejected last fall by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The petition was rejected on the grounds that the study included a "significant number of battery-related injuries ... [which] involve skin or eye irritation from acid vapors, spillage and splashing during ordinary battery handling and servicing, and not from battery explosions." The issue was recently revived, however, as the result of a letter sent by Congressman Thomas A. Luken, D-Ohio, to NHTSA, expressing concern "about the large number of injuries that still occur because of exploding batteries."

The document estimates that car battery companies spend between $60 million and $90 million per year on litigation, settlement and awards related to battery explosions and subsequent lawsuits. In a recent battery explosion liability case in California, a plaintiff was awarded $6.5 million in punitive damages and $3.2 million in general damages from Johnson Controls Inc., the manufacturer of Sears, Roebuck, and Co.'s Die Hard battery.

Dr. C.J. Abraham, an author of the petition, visited and interviewed battery companies including Sears, Exide, GNB and Johnson Controls. "All of the battery companies stated to me that because of the highly competitive situation in the aftermarket, no battery company would risk being the first to offer a safe battery that would eliminate all injuries," Abraham said. "Each company recommended that we approach the Department of Transportation and attempt to obtain a safety standard for batteries through a petition."

- David Lapp