Project Censored Updates

The legacy of toxic waste left during last century's time of ignorance and uncontrolled disposal practices will likely vex our environment and children for decades to come. Beyond containment of the problem, there are no obvious answers.

Since the publication of "Plutonium Pancakes," the city of Denver began accepting the Lowry landfill's toxic liquid discharges. The EPA's solution to the headache, mostly relying upon diluting Lowry's toxins by flushing them into the city's wastewater stream, was halted after a couple of months, according to Steve Pearlman of the Wastewater Reclamation District.

The treated wastewater remained sufficiently poisonous to harm the growth and reproductive rates of micro-organisms used to measure health and safety. Pearlman says the district has made some changes and will began accepting the Lowry toxins again in the near future. The district has also eased its detection standards for certain contaminants (including some that are radioactive), a move Pearlman attributes to lab testing capabilities.

Adrienne Anderson, the outspoken opponent of the disposal plan, has been embroiled in a whistleblower case brought about by her testimony on behalf of the union representing the workers at the Wastewater District. Her comments at an EPA hearing were challenged, leading to a court trail.

During the course of the trial, Anderson discovered that she had been the subject of a coordinated PR campaign aimed at discrediting her. The attacks were part of an effort undertaken by the district to win public support and acceptance for the spreading of the district's sludge on Colorado farm fields.

The district even garnered an award from the national pro-sludge Water and Environment Federation for the PR campaign. The three-ring binder detailing the district's work (obtained by Anderson through a Freedom of Information Act request) contains an entire section describing how they labored to sabotage Anderson.

Anderson says union workers have also suffered under the Lowry waste treatment plan. Workers concerned with their health and safety have been forced out, with one employee even receiving an anonymous death threat.

Throughout, the region's most powerful media have largely remained silent. The state's two biggest newspapers, the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News (which merged in the last year), are among the many powerful corporations who had dumped toxic wastes into Lowry.

Their hand in the mess may partly explain their silence, but Email messages reveal another story. As part of her digging into the smear campaign against her, Anderson says, she found an Email exchange between the district and a local reporter "cackling about the defamatory attacks on me."

While occasional reportage of the Lowry situation continues out-of-state and nationally (including a Christian Science Monitor update), Anderson says "no reporter in Denver will talk to me." News releases issued by her, the union, and others are routinely ignored. And the electronic media, she indicates, has been unwilling to commit investigative resources to the story.