St. Louis County Health Department

Virtual Realty

The phone number for Land and Apartments LLC sports a 314 Area Code, giving apartment hunters the perception they are calling a local real estate office. Instead, they’re being patched into the amorphous world of the Internet, where cloud-based communications are a tad more hazy.     

Bad sign: After tenants began asking questions about the interior demolition of a Richmond Heights apartment building, Land and Apartments belatedly incorporated.

If you’re interested in renting an apartment in St. Louis from Land and Apartments LLC, the real estate investment firm’s phone number is 314-800-0424. When you call that sequence of numbers, a pleasant recorded voice will greet you and politely ask you to leave a message.

Land and Apartments may be in the business of renting brick and mortar properties, but its phone number isn’t tied directly to the company’s physical office. In many respects, the concept of a tangible business address is an anachronism, a quaint idea leftover from the 20th Century.  Nowadays, a disembodied, anonymous voice in the nebulous ether asks you to provide personal information and says: “Your call will be returned as soon as possible.”

Welcome to the virtual world of Voice Operated Internet Protocol.

This technological innovation allows companies to create the appearance of being a neighborly business by using a local Area Code. In reality, the corporation could be located around the corner or around the world. There is no way of knowing for sure. It’s the same technology used by Skype and Google Talk. But in this particular VOIP application, phone numbers — including geographically-based Area Codes — are bought and sold for use over the Internet by various kinds of businesses, including the phone sex trade.

Three different online reverse phone directory searches indicate that 314-800-0424 belongs “B. Honey,” who apparently used the phone number in the past. One of the reverse phone directories lists B Honey as living in Kansas City even though the 314 Area Code is associated with St. Louis. Wherever B Honey is located, it’s a safe bet the name has nothing to do with an aviary.

Sharing the same phone number with the enigmatic “B. Honey” of Kansas City may be nothing more than a fluke, but the coincidental ties to Kansas City don’t stop there.

Last name first: Honey, B

In another simple twist of fate, the organizer of Land and Apartments LLC is listed by the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office as attorney Rex A. Redlingshafer, a partner in the Kansas City branch of the Dentons law firm. Redlingshafer is the nephew and cousin of James Ryan Redlingshafer Sr. and Jr., owners of Artemis Holdings LLC.

Artemis Holdings and Land and Apartments are both involved in the controversial redevelopment of a Richmond Heights apartment building that gained media attention last month, after the companies were cited for violations of the law by municipal and county agencies. Tenants complained to  Richmond Heights and St. Louis County Public Health Department officials about conditions inside the building during its demolition. As a result, occupants were forced to move during the pandemic, including two who were more than 80 years old. Richmond Heights fined Artemis Holdings for not initially applying for a building permit and the health department issued a formal Notice of Violation for skirting a federal environmental law pertaining to asbestos testing.

The building code and environmental law violations occurred prior to Dentons filing incorporation records for Land and Apartments on Oct. 9. It is not known whether Connor O’Leary, who appears to represent both companies, is the owner of Land and Apartments. O’Leary is affiliated with a third limited liability corporation, Central Investments LLC, which is located on the second floor above the Cut N Dye Hair Salon at 1051 S. Big Bend Blvd. in Richmond Heights.

State incorporation laws still shield the owners of limited liability corporations from being identified. However, the passage of the Corporate Transparency Act earlier this month should eliminate this loophole eventually. But for now LLCs continue to operate under the cloak of anonymity nationwide. Beginning with the leak of the Panama Papers in 2016, byzantine networks of limited liability corporations have been the subject of investigations that have uncovered how such shell companies are used by the wealthy to secretly acquire real estate, hide assets, and avoid taxes. The Caribbean is one of the favorite locations used for off-shore activities, including Barbados — where Dentons — the world’s largest law firm, has a presence.

There Goes the Neighborhood

Residents of this apartment building in Richmond Heights were threatened with eviction during the pandemic after reporting the property owner’s illegal activities, which had caused them to be potentially exposed to asbestos during the renovation of the building.

When a new landlord purchased an apartment building in Richmond Heights this summer, none of its tenants knew their lives would be upended. Nor could they anticipate municipal and county officials would turn a blind eye to threats posed to their health and safety. 

Passersby often take the art-deco gem for granted as they walk their dogs or wheel baby carriages down the sidewalk. That’s because the brick apartment building blends seamlessly into the fabric of the neighborhood. It has, after all, been here a long time.

The landmark has anchored the corner of Wise And Moorelands Avenues in Richmond Heights since 1938. Its ocre-colored facade and opaque windows project the elegance of a grande dame, adding a sense of timelessness to the leafy intersection. From the outside, nothing appears amiss. The exterior of the two-story, L-shaped building remains largely the same as when it was built during the Great Depression.

Scene of the crime.

But this semblance of normalcy belies the upheaval that has recently beset those who lived here.

Laws have been violated on these premises. Health regulations flouted. Permits and inspections skirted. The police have been called to the address. Local, state and federal officials have been informed. But nothing yet has been done to clamp down on the lawbreakers. They continue to operate with impunity.

This would be bad enough, but the violations are occurring in the middle of an unprecedented pandemic.

The troubles began this summer, when building owner John Carnasiotis sold the property to James R. Redlingshafer Sr. and James R. Redlingshafer Jr. — owners of Artemis Holdings LLC., — for an estimated $600,000. After the purchase, Artemis then handed over the management of their acquisition to Land and Apartments LLC, a firm operated by Connor O’Leary, who has an office at 1051 S. Big Bend Blvd in Richmond Heights. According to Missouri Secretary of State’s Office records, Land and Apartments registered to do business in the state on October 9, 2020 — after it had already started managing the property.

This may seem like a relatively minor issue, but there are other regulatory anomalies.

The litany of infractions stem from the recent demolition of one of the six apartments, which is part of an overall plan to rehab the entire building, oust the current residents and double the  monthly rents to $1,400.

With no advanced notice, the new owner hired a contractor to gut apartment 1E on Sept. 30 — without first securing the required building permit from the city of Richmond Heights. This allowed the rehabbers to also sidestep a mandatory asbestos inspection. Asbestos, which has long been outlawed, was commonly used in the past as a fire retardant in building materials. The hazardous material causes respiratory diseases and is a well-known human carcinogen that is strictly regulated under federal environmental law.

But those nettlesome details didn’t stop Artemis Holdings from forging ahead.

For three days, the work continued uninterrupted until a tenant called Richmond Heights City Hall and discovered the owner had not applied for the building permit. During this time, residents observed that no safety or mitigation procedures were being followed by Flex Construction, the contractor. Moreover, none of the construction crew wore N-95 masks or other protective equipment. Dust and debris were dispersed throughout the building. Truckloads of debris were removed. After a complaint was filed with the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Diego Utrera, the construction owner, told the OSHA official that the remodeling work was limited to “cosmetic maintenance.”

Debris being removed at 7701 Wise Ave. on Oct. 1.

Richmond Heights issued a stop work order on the construction project Oct. 2. But the next day the contractor showed up at the site to continue the demolition inside the occupied building. This prompted one of the residents to call the police, as she had been instructed to do by the city of Richmond Heights.

After law enforcement officers arrived, the immigrant workers refused to leave the building for approximately 45 minutes. The impasse ended when the building manager arrived at the scene and negotiated with the police. The workers left without further incident.

Two days later, two tenants were issued eviction notices by the manager in apparent retaliation. Both tenants had paid their rent, however, and the notices to vacate were against state law. The eviction notices also violated a St. Louis County order that prohibits evictions during the pandemic.

On Oct. 5, Alison Carrick, a longtime resident of the building, appealed to the Richmond Heights City Council to intervene to protect the health and safety of the occupants. After she spoke to the council meeting via Zoom, Richmond Heights Mayor Jim Thomson vowed to look into the situation and advised building residents to contact Building Commissioner James Benedick about their concerns.

James Benedict described the full demolition of the apartment as “a little painting.”

Benedick, however, dismissed the tenants concerns, mischaracterizing the demolition project and the spewing of potentially toxic materials, as “a little painting.”

A week later, construction work resumed after the city belatedly issued a building permit. As required by law, an asbestos inspection was also conducted by a private environmental firm. The questionable activities associated with the project did not abate, however. Instead, the obfuscation escalated because both the building permit and asbestos inspection contained false information.

In comments presented to the St. Louis County Council on Oct. 13, Carrick pointed out multiple discrepancies contained in the building permit. The contractor, for instance, was listed as “unknown.” The permit also contained a fake phone number (314-123-4567). Moreover, the permit misidentified the owner of Artemis Holdings as being the building manager. The misinformation in the permit described the renovation as being limited to the “remodeling of the kitchen and bath,” and pegged the estimated total cost at $500. In reality, the entire interior of the apartment had been gutted.

When Benedick was notified of the underestimate, the amount listed on the permit was increased by ten times to $5,000, but that amount is still less than what such a project actually costs, according to a retired building inspector consulted for this story. When later confronted about this discrepancy, Benedick admitted that low-balling the estimated cost could result in reduced revenue from municipal building permit fees and county property taxes.

In short, the project appears to have possibly received a de facto subsidy from the Richmond Heights and St. Louis County.

Richmond Heights Building and Zoning Administrator James Benedick

After the owner was cited for not getting the requisite asbestos testing done, Artemis Holdings was compelled to hire Wellington Environmental Consulting and Construction Inc. to perform the asbestos inspection. On Oct. 7, Patrick Harper, a Wellington executive, conducted a “walk through” inspection of the apartment. Harper signed off on the inspection, claiming no asbestos was present, and submitted his findings to the St. Louis County Health Department. But there was more than one hitch to his stamp of approval. To begin with, Harper is not a licensed asbestos inspector. On top of that, he also failed to send any samples to a qualified laboratory for testing.

Harper’s cursory inspection failed to meet the sniff test of air pollution control specialist Ari Yarovinski of the St. Louis County Health Department, who rejected the inspection because Harper lacked the required Missouri Department of Natural Resources license to conduct asbestos inspections. His expertise lies elsewhere. Harper is identified as the clean-up company’s executive in charge of “corporate growth” at Wellington Environmental’s website.

After Yarovinski rejected the first asbestos inspection, Artemis Holdings had Wellington re-inspect the property. This time the environmental clean-up firm managed to assign a licensed inspector to conduct the inspection. By then, however, the the asbestos-contaminated kitchen floor tiles had already been removed and dumped by the contractor. Old floor tiles are generally acknowledged within the real estate industry and construction trade as the building materials most commonly contaminated with asbestos. Instead of testing floor tiles, the second inspector took samples from the kitchen walls. Those samples did not contain asbestos.

At her own expense, Carrick then took samples of the same floor tiles used throughout the apartment building to the St. Louis County Health Department laboratory in Berkley, Mo. for testing.

The St. Louis County Environmental Laboratory discovered asbestos in the samples of the floor tiles in the building.

The test results — conducted by the county’s own lab — showed the presence of asbestos.

Despite this evidence, Richmond Heights allowed Artemis Holdings to continue its rehab project with tenants living in the building. The noise, dirt and fumes from the subsequent demolition and construction work caused an 82-year-old resident, who has multiple sclerosis, to seek medical attention for heart palpitations. Other tenants, who were working at home due to the pandemic, found it next to impossible to do their jobs.

Related Article: Indifference: The new owners of an apartment building in Richmond Heights didn’t factor in the human costs of dislocating residents during the pandemic.

A Secret Biological Intelligence Program

In 2007, the same congressional committee that years later refused to transfer authority for the clean up of West Lake Landfill to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, investigated the awarding of a Homeland Security bio-surveillance contract to SAIC, the giant defense contractor.

IMG_3680

Leidos offices in St. Louis at 2327 South Grand Blvd.

 During President George W. Bush’s administration, the House Committee on Energy and Commerce announced an inquiry into the National Bio-surveillance Integration System, an intelligence gathering operation of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security administered by the Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC).

The House committee was then apparently interested in whether the bidding process was rigged.

In 2013, SAIC spun off a large portion of its classified government work by forming another company, Leidos. Both SAIC and Leidos have received  multi-million-dollar contracts to do clean up work  for the  U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Formerly Utilized Site Remediation Program (FUSRAP) in St. Louis, including the continuing cleanup of Coldwater Creek in North St. Louis County.

In addition to its environmental engineering component, Leidos is the largest private cyber espionage outfit in the nation with estimated government contracts worth $60 billion. The company employs 80 percent of the private-sector work force engaged in contract work for U.S. spy and surveillance agencies, including Homeland Security, the CIA and NSA.

Leidos also has a contract with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources through its  federal facilities management division.

The earlier creation of the National Bio-surveillance Integration by Homeland Security through its contract with SAIC has received little subsequent attention. The program was authorized by President George W. Bush under Presidential Directive 10. Its stated mission was “to provide early detection and situational awareness of biological events of potential national consequence by acquiring, integrating, analyzing, and disseminating existing human, animal, plant, and environmental bio-surveillance system data into a common operating picture,” according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The Department of Homeland Security further describes the classified program as follows: “The National Biosurveillance Integration Center (NBIC) integrates, analyzes, and distributes key information about health and disease events to help ensure the nation’s responses are well-informed, save lives, and minimize economic impact.” 

Spurred by the outcries of concerned residents about potential health problems associated with chronic exposure to radioactive waste, the St. Louis County Health Department in conjunction with the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry have taken an active interest in the radioactive waste issue in the St. Louis region.  Whether Homeland’s Bio-Surveillance operation is monitoring conditions in St. Louis independently or with the cooperation of these other government agencies remains unknown.

Other community activists have long advocated taking away the control of the West Lake Landfill Superfund site in Bridgeton, Mo.  from the EPA and putting it under the control of the Corps of Engineers FUSRAP program, which has authority over the other St. Louis area radioactive sites.  But despite bi-partisan support of the St. Louis area congressional delegation, a bill slotted to shift control died in the House Committee on Energy and Commerce last year.

The West Lake Landfill Superfund site is owned by Republic Services Inc., the second-largest waste disposal company in the U.S. The company’s chief spokesman is Russ Knocke, a former top spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security.

The presence of a top-secret operation inside an AT&T building near West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton adds another murky hue to an already cloudy picture. The facility is presumed to be controlled by the National Security Agency but may house some other unknown government covert operation.

 

 

WASTED IN WEST COUNTY

As a prelude to snuffing the flames at the Times Beach dioxin incinerator, the EPA moved more than 4,000 tons of “special” waste from the clean-up site to a controversial landfill in St. Louis County

published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis) July 9, 1997

BY C.D. STELZER

In late May, when the dump trucks began rumbling down Vance and Sulphur Springs Roads in southwest St. Louis County, residents along the route had no way of knowing that the vehicles were hauling chemically- contaminated soil from Times Beach. That’s because no one from the federal, state or local government bothered to tell them.

Ultimately, over a two-week period, a total of 4,466 tons of non- dioxin-contaminated waste, which had been excavated from the site of the former Times Beach city park, wound up at the nearby Superior Oak Ridge Landfill. The soils contained dangerous volatile organic chemicals, including ethylbenzine, toluene, xylene, tetrocholorethylene and trichloroethylene.

No less than three sources reached for this story refused to comment on the transfer of the waste, citing a confidentiality agreement with the EPA — an agreement the EPA doesn’t even acknowledge exists. An EPA attorney, who did go on the record, said she had no idea how much the city park clean up cost. A public affairs spokeswoman for the agency asked that all questions pertaining to landfill shipments be placed in writing. Although a Freedom of Information Act request was submitted, there have been no answers yet.

The stealthy manner in which the tainted dirt was relocated and the silence since then has led opponents of the Superfund cleanup to further criticize the project, which is now near completion. In advance of a media event to publicize the final snuffing of the flames at the Times Beach dioxin incinerator, the public affairs office at the site disconnected its phone. (park here)
Officials who have been contacted have attempted to diffuse the issue. The word from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and the St. Louis County Health Department is that there is nothing to worry about because the soil that went to the landfill contains only low-levels of contamination. Indeed, they emphasize that the latest tests show negligible amounts of toxic chemicals at the city park site. By contrast, the EPA’s own 1986 draft feasibility study claimed that soil contamination at the park went20 feet deep and ground water was contaminated with 13 different chemicals.

In the latest tests, the EPA didn’t search for highly-toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) because none were recorded to have been found in tests conducted in 1991. But earlier tests conducted in 1982 showed PCBs present at the same location, according to sources close to the Times Beach clean up. This apparent discrepancy may be explained to a degree by the natural breakdown of the chemicals over time. Public confidence in the reliability of EPA data has also broken down over time, however, and PCBs are known to be persistent in the environment. Aside from not informing the public in a timely manner, the transfer of the waste to the landfill raises other concerns. The Riverfront Times has learned the following:

* The landfill that accepted the waste from the Times Beach city park has repeatedly been cited for operating violations by the DNR. Superior Services Inc. of Wisconsin, the new landfill owner, has yet to fully rectify the latest problem, according to the Missouri Attorney General’s office. Interestingly, Superior also controls a subsidiary specializing in hazardous waste cleanups. That company has done work for the EPA in the past.

* James B. Becker, who owned the landfill until last year, headed a consulting engineering firm that did survey work at the Times Beach clean up, according to the DNR. Records show his son is still the managing operator for the landfill. The elder Becker, a heavy campaign contributor to County Democrats, has been involved in past political controversies.
* The former mayor of Times Beach and a civil attorney with knowledge of the case both say the city park tested positive for highly- toxic PCBs in 1982. Sampling at that time also found other hazardous chemicals. Tests conducted nine years later, however, somehow failed to find any PCBs In May, the EPA chose not to sample again for the persistent chemical and claims to have found only insignificant levels of other contaminants.

* A driver for Russell Bliss, the waste hauler who sprayed Times Beach with dioxin-contaminated oil, admitted dumping liquid chemical waste at the same site (then called West County Landfill) in the early 1970s, according to copies of government documents obtained by the RFT.

“What’s really strange about this whole thing is they took Superfund money to take material they were afraid was going to leach into the ground water at Times Beach, and dumped it into a municipal waste landfill in West County that has been out of compliance for the lastdecade,” says Steve Taylor of the Times Beach Action Group (TBAG).

Taylor and other local environmental activists have long charged that incineration — the mandated method of disposing of dioxin- contaminated waste in Eastern Missouri — falls short of meeting the EPA’s own stringent emissions standards and thereby endangers human health and the environment. Evidence uncovered by TBAG late last year cast doubt on the reliability of a crucial 1995 stack emissions test, which was conducted to verify the operational safety of the incinerator.

Now that Syntex, the liable party in the dioxin clean up, has finished burning 265,000 tons of dioxin-contaminated soil (more than twice the amount originally estimated), TBAG is concerned about the remaining waste. This separate phase of the remediation has until now received little or no attention. Under the terms of the 1990 consent decree, non- dioxin contaminated materials could not be burned at the Times Beach incinerator. In some cases, barrels of hazardous waste have been shipped out of state for disposal. Soil deemed to contain only low levels of contamination, however, could be legally moved to an ordinary sanitary landfill for disposal.

In the case of the Times Beach city park, the EPA sought and received permits from both the state and county to haul “special waste” to the Superior Oak Ridge Landfill. To move the waste, the EPA circumvented its own strict regulations by deferring to more lenient guidelines imposed by the DNR, according to Martha Steincamp, an EPA attorney. Steincamp referred to the city park clean up as a “removal action not a remedial action.” She compared the landfill shipments to the disposal of other non-hazardous waste at the site such as flood debris and abandoned household goods. When asked why such seemingly benign materials needed to be disposed of at all, Steincamp replied: “Because Times Beach is going to be a park and we want to clean it all up.”
Unlike the high-profile incineration project, shipments of the contaminants to the landfill went virtually unnoticed. The press release relating to the project failed to mention the destination of the waste other than to say, “the contaminated soil will be transported off-site to a licensed disposal facility.”

A spokeswoman for the St. Louis County Health Department doesn’t see why local government should have been any more vigilant in alerting citizens than the EPA has been. “If we put out a news release every time somebody shipped properly handled waste, that’s not news, says Ellen Waters. “What benefit would it be to the citizens to know the waste is being properly handled? It’s good to know, but it almost goes withoutsaying. The assumption is always there — that’s what we do day in and day out.”

If the current name of the landfill — Superior Oak Ridge — seems unfamiliar that’s because up until September of last year the facility was formally known as West County Disposal Ltd. Among area residents it is still simply referred to as West County Landfill. Superior Services Inc., the new owner, is a Wisconsin-based solid waste management firm.
The current violation at the landfill dates back to November 1991, when the Missouri Attorney General’s office filed suit on behalf of the DNR. The DNR had cited the landfill for exceeding its vertical limits because trash had piled up 680 feet high, 40 feet over the limit. Last year, a $30,000 fine was imposed on the prior landfill operator. Since acquiring the landfill in September, Superior Services has not brought the facility into compliance with state requirements, according to Joseph P. Bindbeutel, chief counsel of the environmental division of the Missouri Attorney General’s office.

“From our standpoint as enforcers, … they bought a pig in a poke,” say Bindbeutel. “And they are continuing to sort of pay the dues of operational confusion out at that landfill. There are so many plans, and so many intentions, and so many maps, and so many management techniques out there nobody knew how they were going to operate. … Becker (the prior owner) actually committed the violation,” says Bindbeutel. “But we will be demanding remediation and penalties from the new operator. They bought the overfill. They’re responsible for it.”

Despite the tough talk, Bindbeutel indicates the state appreciates what Superior has contributed — namely a $4 million assurance bond to cover any emergencies or future closure. Bindbuetel also credits Superior for actively seeking to make improvements at the site. “They redesigned the active part of the landfill completely, including a methane recovery system that will very much benefit the environment.”

Peter J. Ruud, vice president and chief counsel for Superior, refused to discuss the sale terms, and cited a confidentiality agreement with the EPA concerning the contaminated waste from Times Beach. But it’s no secret the company has expanded lately through a series of acquisitions in the Midwest. The solid waste management firm also owns a subsidiary, Superior Specialty Services that handles hazardous waste cleanups, including contracts with the EPA

In essence, Superior bought the former West County Disposal Ltd., changed it name and acquired the same operating permit held by the previous owner. The Wisconsin company acquired all potential liability associated with the landfill, too. Mitch Stepro, the special waste coordinator for the landfill, also refused to discuss the Times Beach waste, citing a confidentiality agreement with the EPA. Because both sides are remaining mum, it is unclear why the out-of-state company would buy into a landfill that faces possible further sanctions by the state.

Becker, the former landfill owner, referred all questions to his attorney, Brian McGovern, who accused the DNR of dragging its bureaucratic feet. “There was an exceedence of the vertical elevations, but they’re was also a counter claim alleged,” says McGovern. “Plans had been submitted at the landfill that would have allowed access to additional areas.” But the DNR put off looking at the landfill’s expansion plans for four years, according to McGovern, thus stymieing the operator’s ability to contain the waste in a more appropriate manner.
Problems at the landfill go back more than four years, however.

West County Landfill acquired its first operating permit in December 1972, and public protests started immediately. One early critic, geologist Charles Felt of St. Louis University, told the St. Louis Globe-Democrat : “My research indicates that the area is not suitable for a landfill. In the first place, rocks underneath the area would allow water to pass through.” In 1973, Martin D. Baron of the Coalition for the Environment voiced more opposition, telling the County Council the water quality of the nearby Meramec River needed to be protected.

The pleas fell on deaf ears. The County approved the license for the 129-acre landfill and problems at the site began to mount. In 1983, the state ordered the landfill closed, alleging Becker had failed to take adequate steps to protect ground and surface water from pollution. But West County continued to operate while it appealed the case. Two years later, DNR finally reached a settlement agreement that imposed strict guidelines on the landfill. A DNR official then said the stiff requirements had been imposed because soil conditions at the facility allowed waste to seep into the ground.

In recent years, neighbors of the landfill complained to the St. Louis County Council about odors. Other residents notified authorities of dumping late a night. But the County did little. Perhaps the most telling evidence of official disdain for citizens’ concerns is found in complaint log #8071 on file at the St. Louis County Health Department. In a letterdated May 11, 1996, residents of Greenfield Crossing Court asked for help to stem “the pollution, strong unpleasant odors, noise and traffic caused by the operators of the landfill.” In response, an unknown official jotted in the margin, “What pollution? (These are) all conditions associated with normal landfill operations. Why did they buy property next to a landfill, if they did not like these conditions?”

In 1991, when West County community activist Angela Dillmon started checking out local candidates, she found Becker had contributed heavily to Democrats on the County Council, particularly, the campaign of County Executive Buzz Westfall. By Dillmon’s tally, Becker and individuals and companies connected to him gave Westfall tens of thousands of dollars. “It was serious money,” says Dillmon.

It wasn’t the first time Becker had become involved in local politics. In 1974, he pled the Fifth Amendment 58 times in the perjury trial of then-St. Louis Building Commissioner Kenneth O. Brown. Brown was charged with lying to a grand jury about a $1,500 check he had received from Becker. The prosecution alleged the money was paid to Brown for steering work to Becker’s consulting engineering firm.

Later, from 1984 to 1987, the late St. Louis County highway director Richard F. Daykin got the County Council to give more than $800,000 in no- bid contracts to James B. Becker Consulting Engineers, according to press accounts. At that time, Daykin’s son, Richard J. Daykin, worked for Becker’s engineering firm. While employed by Becker, the younger Daykin helped survey the Times Beach site.

After his father’s death, Daykin befriended Taylor, the TBAG activist. He then told Taylor of irregularities in soil sampling he had observed at Times Beach. He also mentioned safety violations at the site. Daykin repeated his allegations in an interview with an environmental attorney who was preparing a federal suit to try and halt incinerator operations.

But Daykin never got a chance to go on the record. In August 1995, Federal Judge John F. Nangle reaffirmed Superfund clean ups can’t be sued until after they are completed. That judicial ruling is not what permanently silenced Daykin, however. He died of injuries received in a one-car accident early last year.

Taylor is hesitant to broach the subject of his friend’s death. “There was no indications of foul play,” he says. “It is presumed by friends and family to have been an accident. We don’t really know because there weren’t many questions asked. Rich was always hesitant about bringing up things,” says Taylor. “But he came to his own realization things weren’ton the up and up at Times Beach. He thought a lot of things that happened down there were suspicious.”

For its part, the EPA claims ignorance of all these details. “I don’t keep up on St. Louis politics that much,” says Martha Steincamp, the regional counsel for the EPA. “The most important thing to us, of course, is that we are selecting a location that is properly licensed and approved by whomever the licensing authorities are to receive this waste. In this case, there were discussions with the county officials and it was a properly licensed landfill to receive special waste and they did have the conditional use permit.”

In 1995, Marilyn Leisner, the former mayor of Times Beach, told the RFT the city park site contained PCBs, albeit low levels. Her recollection is based on private testing done in 1982 prior to the evacuation of the dioxin-contaminated town. “When the testing was completed, it was determined the PCBs were only at the city park,” said Leisner. “In the cleanup at Times Beach, Syntex is not responsible for the PCBs. So the park cleanup is not being done by Syntex; it is being done separately by the EPA.”

As Leisner and Steincamp both explain it, dioxin at Times Beach fell under Superfund regulation, which made Syntex, the liable party, responsible for its clean up. But the PCB contamination at the city park came under the auspices of another federal law, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). RCRA regulations allow the states to set the contamination guidelines.

Gerson Smoger, an attorney who represented former Times Beach residents, couldn’t corroborate Leisner’s recollection exactly, but he did remember the presence of PCBs at the city park, as well as, elsewhere in Times Beach. “When they were doing the testing, the assumption made in the early 1980s was that dioxin was of such extreme harm that anything else was irrelevant.” Nevertheless, according to Smoger, the concentrations of PCBs alone were high enough to declare Times Beach a hazardous waste site. “One would assume there would still be PCBs there, ” says Smoger. But, according to sampling conducted in 1991, the PCBs — a persistent environmental pollutant — had somehow vanished.

PCBs or no PCBs, significant levels of volatile organic chemicals were indisputably detected at the city park as early as 1982. Private tests conducted at that time for the city of Times Beach showed thepresence of toluene at 120,000 part per billion (ppb), ethyl benzene at 170,000 ppb, acetone at 82,000 ppb and xylenes at up to 510,000 ppb. A Centers for Disease Control spokesman commented then that the contaminants were “of concern, ” but pronounced there was no emergency response necessary. As a result, the chemicals continued to leach into the ground water for another 15 years before they were transported to the Superior Oak Ridge Landfill in late May and early June. Although the landfill now uses pumps and liners to prevent seepage, there is still a chance some of the remaining contaminants could potentially pollute water entering the Meramec River.

Of course, if the waste isn’t hazardous, as the EPA contends, there would be no reasonable cause to move it in the first place. On the other hand, if it does warrant disposal, there seems little logic in shipping it to a landfill in the same ecologically sensitive watershed.
Anne McCauley, the EPA on-site coordinator for the city park clean up says several factors weighed into the decision to send the waste to Superior Oak Ridge. “One was the location relative to the site we were cleaning up,” says McCauley. “It was very close to the city park site. The transportation route was very short in addition to the fact that the facility is permitted to accept this kind of waste.”

Not surprisingly Taylor of TBAG has a diametrically opposed view. “We believe this is more of a toxic-waste shell game than a clean up,” he says. “We feel there’s a lot of secrets. That this whole incineration project was about preserving secrets and protecting commercial interests more than protecting public health.”

One well-kept secret is contained in the files of the Collinsville office of the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA). In late 1982, after the extent of Bliss’s toxic spraying binge became known, the IEPA asked its federal counterpart for information on sites in Illinois that Bliss may have contaminated a decade earlier.

In one document handed over by the EPA, there is a reference to the West County Landfill. At the time, there seemed to be some confusion by state officials as to whether the landfill was in Missouri or Illinois. The IEPA summary lists the source of the information as Stephen P. Krchma of the Missouri Attorney General’s office. Krchma had in turn based his report on an interview with David Covert, one of Bliss’s drivers. The summary citation reads:
“

Wastes were also reported by Covert to be hauled to the West County landfill in Sulphur Springs (IL or MO?) where the operators were paid off to accept the wastes.”
The reference to Sulphur Springs most likely denotes the St. Louis County road on which West County Landfill (now Superior Oak Ridge Landfill) is located.

On December 23, 1982, IEPA officials interviewed Covert themselves. During the interview, Covert talked about picking up ink from a company in St. Louis County. “It smells terrible and I don’t think it burns,” said Covert. “You just haul that stuff into the west county landfill and open the valve and let it run out.” Before they were banned, PCBs were used in the manufacture of ink.
The reason the EPA and DNR passed over the West County Landfill in their own search appear to be twofold. For one, another Bliss driver changed his story. According to the EPA’s dioxin site tracking list, Gary Lambarth “indicated he had oiled the road in the landfill around 1972.”

Lambarth made that statement in the spring of 1983. By fall, however, he reversed himself, claiming he had confused West County with another landfill. In addition, the EPA dioxin tracking list states that DNR was “deferring action until (the) relationship with ongoing litigation is determined.” As already mentioned, the state agency had attempted to close the landfill in 1983 because Becker had failed to adequately protect ground and surface water from pollution.
In a sense, the waste from the city park completes the contamination circle. Two Bliss drivers initially confessed to dumping waste at West County Landfill in the early 1970s. Only one is known to have retracted the admission. The state cited the landfill for water pollution violations in 1983, but has continued to allow the landfill to operate. Complaints by citizens have been dismissed by the County. Meanwhile, those involved in accepting contaminated waste from Times Beach refuse to comment, citing a confidentiality agreement with the EPA. The silence extends to the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Louis. “We don’t confirm or deny the possible existence of an investigation,” says Jan Diltz, a local Department of Justice (DOJ) spokeswoman. She declined to comment further on whether there is a current federal inquiry into activities at Time Beach.

In 1982, the DOJ — acting on behalf of the EPA and the White House — withheld documents from a congressional investigation, citing executive privilege. Among the documents the DOJ refused to hand over were handwritten notes of EPA attorney James Kohanek, pertaining toproposed activity on Missouri dioxin sites. In a published account, then- U.S. Rep. Elliott Levitas, D-Ga., who sat on House Public Works Committee, remembered exactly when the stonewalling began. “As far as I was concerned, it was just a routine exercise in oversight,” said Levitas of the congressional inquiry. “Right in the middle of it there was a decision made by the EPA … permitting sanitary landfills to be used to receive liquid waste. … Then boom — the door got shut.”