And now:Ish <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: Date: Wed, 16 Jun 1999 11:21:33 -0400 From: LISN <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Organization: League of Indigenous Sovereign Nations of the Western Hemisphere http://www.nytimes.com/yr/mo/day/news/national/regional/ny-fbi-water-records .html -- ================================================================ League of Indigenous Sovereign Nations of the Western Hemisphere E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] LISN Web Site | http://www.lisn.net For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ================================================================ Disclaimer: This material is distributed in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107. All copyrights belong to original publisher. LISN has not verified the accuracy of the forwarded message. Forwarding this message does not necessarily imply agreement with the positions stated there-in. ================================================================ June 16, 1999 F.B.I. Seizes City Records on Reservoirs By ANDREW C. REVKIN esponding to complaints that New York City officials had covered up the mishandling of hazardous materials in the water system, Federal agents swept through offices and buildings of the city's Department of Environmental Protection Tuesday, seizing records and copying computer files. Federal law enforcement officials said that the city's drinking water had not been contaminated by the materials, and they declined to discuss their findings. But officials said the investigation was focusing on spills and leaks at a building next to the Kensico Reservoir north of White Plains, which is a gateway for much of the city's drinking water. Last year, private environmental groups, compiling information they said they were provided by city employees, had complained to Federal officials that there were indications that city engineers and water officials had covered up hazardous spills at the building and in other parts of the city's far-flung system of upstate reservoirs and aqueducts. City environmental officials said Tuesday that there was no cover-up, adding that they had been working closely with the Federal Environmental Protection Agency for years on the cleanup of hazardous chemicals in some buildings and were surprised by the abrupt F.B.I. searches. The searches, ordered by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Mary Jo White, sought records and evidence related to possible spills of mercury and PCB's, both of which are used in decades-old gauges and gates controlling the flow of water from upstate reservoirs to city taps, said Marvin Smilon, a spokesman for Ms. White. Smilon said the city had been notified of the impending searches a day ahead of time and said the operation was cooperative. Federal officials would not confirm the locations of the searches, but interviews with several employees of the city's water-supply division indicated that agents had searched the office of the city's Commissioner of Environmental Protection, Joel A. Miele Sr., as well as offices in Valhalla, Mount Pleasant, Katonah and Ashokan, scattered around the city watersheds in upstate New York. In some cases, computer files were copied, records were confiscated, or cabinets sealed, according to several employees who were present during the searches. Giuliani administration officials Tuesday stressed that there was no danger to the water and said the old equipment containing hazardous materials was being replaced. "A contractor has been working on each of these gates to make sure any contaminants are cleaned up," said Michael D. Hess, the City Corporation Counsel. "No one is more concerned about contamination in the water supply than we are." Calls to Miele's office were referred to Hess. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a professor of environmental law at Pace University and a frequent critic of the city's system for supplying drinking water, said that he gave information to the F.B.I. last year that showed a pattern of spills of mercury and hazardous chemicals in city water-supply buildings and of efforts to hide the problem. In addition, Kennedy said city records showed that hundreds of pounds of mercury had been found in gate houses around the system, but no records could be found showing how the agency disposed of the liquid metal, which is toxic in concentrations as low as several parts per billion. The building under scrutiny, called Shaft 18, is a white monolith next to the Kensico Reservoir dam. The reservoir is a way station for 90 percent of the drinking water flowing toward the city from other reservoirs farther upstate. The building houses gates that rise or drop like garage doors, modulating the flow of water. "They don't have any of that documentation," Kennedy said. "This is the agency that's supposed to be regulating pollution in the watershed. The fact that you have two of the most toxic materials used in society spilled on the floors of the most important shaft building in the reservoir system is not a good sign." PCB's, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were long used in electrical insulators, and are now banned as a probable cause of cancer. Kennedy, counter to the city's claims, said that tests had shown elevated levels of mercury in the Hillview Reservoir, downstream from Shaft 18. Some employees of the agency said the criminal investigation was long overdue. A senior city water engineer said the culture in the water-supply offices was to hide a problem, not expose it. "The name of the game in this place is not to do your job, but to cover up everything and anything that is negative, from wee little things on up to the top," the engineer said. City environmental officials said it appeared that the Federal probe was in part related to the performance of contractors handling the cleanup of contamination. But in the end, many city officials said the F.B.I. actions puzzled them. "I don't know what theory the Federal Government has," said Hess, in the Mayor's law office. Copyright 1999 The New York Times Company Reprinted under the fair use http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html doctrine of international copyright law. &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&& Tsonkwadiyonrat (We are ONE Spirit) Unenh onhwa' Awayaton http://www.tdi.net/ishgooda/ &&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
