The Devil is Usually in the Details, But Sometimes He Holds a Press Conference

In the world of corporate "gotcha" dirty tricks are the norm rather than the exception. Environmental violations railed up by White Rock Quarries (WRQ) and Mr. Bradley against EBSCO have been used in the local press and submitted to the aggregate industry online articles to embarrass them. The problem with this, is that when one corporation is held to a different standard than the representatives for the competing business in the same arena of who did what, it creates a "selective wrongdoing atmosphere" and does not tell the whole story.

Such is the case with a "hit piece" from November of 2009 orchestrated by Stephen Bradley, the subject of our previous posting.

On November 11, 2009, the largest local employer in the Vincent area took a stand publicly in the county newspaper,  the Shelby County Reporter (SCR) against the Vincent Hills (WRQ) quarry, citing damage to their building and their worker's safety based on geological experts reports. They were right to be genuinely concerned for both.

On November 19, 2009, WRQ and Bradley came back with a press conference, complete with multiple cameras flashing from news outlets, large visual exhibits of their "evidence" and the ADEM files supporting their claims of what EBSCO had done from 1969-1985.

They were truthful that the incident had occurred, we will not dispute that as it is part of the official state records and in the public arena, but that is where the truth ends and propaganda begins.

During this press conference, Mr. Bradley took center stage accompanied by Mr. Fowler. The video is online form the local NBC News affiliate in the Birmingham area, we will not give them any face time and invite the reader to view the video for themselves.

Mr. Fowler seemed nervous and not self-assured in his body language and was stumbling during some his verbiage. We can understand why as he admitted during the press conference that their own testing revealed no traces of the "cancer causing chemicals under the ground in the area."

He went on to say that "it was there and may be isolated" and "would probably come to the quarry" when they begin operations.

Which is it Mr. Fowler? Is "it" there, which your own tests revealed "it" was not, or is this an attempt to lay the groundwork for someone else being the culprit when future tests reveal contamination due to the quarry?

We suspect it is the latter.

He also continued to parrot the line of "White Rock has never had a water violation of any kind."

That issue was covered in the "Poison Wells" story and linked to on this blog. The US District Court and Judge Hoeveler in Florida very much disagrees and court record transcripts state there was clear evidence of the benzene contamination that was not in the public arena, but was presented to the court.

Two things changed the final outcome of the case; the Florida environmental agency DERM closed the investigation and the US Army Corp of Engineers agreed to give the miners even more acreage in the Everglades to destroy.

It wasn't the first time the Corps made a very bad decision and Judge Hoeveler ripped them apart in a scathing 176 page opinion that can be found online; some of it is linked to on the right side under the "Poison Wells" link. The EPA reports also linked to on the right, show clearly the lack of inspections and reporting by WRQ to the EPA and the state findings boxes show inspections, but the results fields are blank.

So, it begs the question of did the inspections really occur or were they "rubber stamped"? This has also been written about on the "Eye On Miami" blog.

Mr. Bradley has no room to take anyone to to task for environmental violations and not informing the public of risks based on toxic chemical exposure from those violations. His history was revealed in the subsequent post and he has nothing to be proud of on this front. One would think he would avoid direct involvement of this nature because of his past, but the lure of attack was probably just too inviting to pass up. 

BARD is well-known for being overly aggressive and has been quoted in the press (Bham News) as an entity that will "crush any opposition that stands in the way of their client's interests."

This is business as usual in the powerful rock mining world, and it is no different in small town Alabama, particularly if WRQ, Bradley and Fowler are involved based on their public history; dirty tricks and the game of  "gotcha" are their SOP.