is jerry russell bliss still alive

Missouri's problem is different from New York's Love Canal, which Hooker Chemical used as a toxic dump for dioxin until it was discovered in 1978. While the CDC warned residents to evacuate and stay out to avoid dioxin exposure, the jury is still out on its long-term effect on humans, as well as the extent of contamination. The dispute pitted neighbors, even relatives, against one another, eroding the citys greatest asset, its family atmosphere. TBAG started its investigation because it thought there had been a coverup by state and federal authorities on the source and extent of contamination in Missouri, says Taylor. It was an overstatement, to be sure, but one rooted in factat least until the Great Depression. It's a free country. By Phil McCausland. The Vietnam veterans got a huge settlement, Taylor says. Some Times Beach residents evacuated, but many defiantly stayed. It went to the rooftop., Boo Sowards, a tall, muscular man wearing a Mizzou T-shirt, jeans, and work boots, grew up in Times Beach. It was during this period that Bliss was trucking some of the sludge to his own storage tanks where he mixed it with waste oil and sold it for dust control. British man breaks world record with 17 flesh tunnels on his face. WebJerry-Russell Bliss, Inc. v. Hazardous Waste Management Comm'n. The oil, it turned out, was laced with dioxin. WebJERRY-RUSSELL BLISS, INC., Petitioner-Appellant, v. HAZARDOUS WASTE MANAGEMENT COMMISSION, et al., Respondents. Mr. Bliss contends he was not warned the dioxin wastes were hazardous and that his license has been denied unfairly because of past practices that were legal and The Times Beach story began as a medical mystery in 1971 when Bliss was hired to dispose of 18,000 gallons of gooey, foul-smelling sludge from the defunct Northeastern Pharmaceutical & Chemical Co. in Verona. They would write him a check., Rollins allegations have been corroborated to a degree by Judy Piatt, the one-time owner of Shenandoah Stables in Moscow Mill, Mo. But as you see, Bliss drivers consistently stated that Monsanto was a client.. After Bliss sprayed the Shenandoah Stables in Moscow Mills in 1971, owner Judy Piatt watched barn sparrows die "by the bushel.". Nowadays, much to its chagrin, all of this tainted history falls under the jurisdiction of the city of Wildwood, which was incorporated in 1995. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. Jerry Buss, the Los Angeles Lakers owner who shepherded the NBA team to 10 championships from the Showtime dynasty of the 1980s to the Kobe Bryant era, died Monday. She wants to let people remember the good times, and she knows that she reminds them of the bad ones. The haul included drums laden with cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The second half of the sites name is something of a misnomer, because the locations of the Bliss farm and the other hazardous-waste sites are all outside the Ellisville municipal limits. Piatt had a hunch that there was something in Bliss' oil and started befriending his drivers and tailing his trucks. The way we understand it, Monsanto told EPA investigators that they did not hire Bliss end of story, says Taylor. The EPA has refused to reveal the list of alternatives prior to the publication of its EE/CAs, but according to Ellisville city manager Jeff LaGarce, the choices will likely include a technique called thermal desorption, an unproven process that allows the waste to be detoxified on site. Houses were ripped from their foundations. Bliss was the driver of the truck that unknowingly Though it was rocky at times, their iconic relationship lasted for five years before they called it quits in 1982. The top level found beneath the surface in Ellisville was 1,173 ppb, according to the EPA. His parents opened a donut shop at the corner of Forest Road and Park Drive, serving Boston creams and coffee to the residents of the tight-knit community, nestled in a valley along the Meramec River, southwest of St. Louis. At the hearing on the matter, the DNR submitted two contracts between Monsanto and Russell Bliss dated 1975 and 1976, the time period in which Bliss is known to have sprayed Terre Du Lac. Waste was tracked to the Verona plant. "Hindsight would be wonderful," Lafser said. The chemical companies, he has always maintained, never told him exactly what he was hauling. Horses became sick, and eventually, Piatt would bury more than 50 of them. "They'd tell me, 'You can't see it, taste it or feel it.' As Leistner describes it, Times Beach was idyllic. Officials blame their inaction on scientists who once believed dioxin decays faster than it does. The full history of the Callahan site and the others in the Caulks Creek watershed remains something of an enigma. But it was not until Piatt's horses began dying and her daughter became ill that CDC toxicologists believed something was dreadfully wrong. On Aug. 7, Taylor asked the St. Louis County Council to assist TBAG by forming a task force to independently investigate possible hazardous waste sites that may have been overlooked in the past by the EPA and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Back in 1982, she called Bliss and asked him, point-blank, whether he had sprayed Times Beach with dioxin. Jerry Russell Bliss, 66 - Saint James, MO - Has Court or Look at the record of decision. He faced a maximum of nine years in prison. We feel that our residents should not be subjected to having that site next to them for an excessive period of time., On the other hand, the director of the St. Louis County Parks and Recreation Department, expressed unqualified satisfaction with the EPAs handling of the McDonnell Park site. He was hired to dispose of the waste after Northeastern was absorbed by Syntex Agribusiness Inc. Court records show that Northeastern had waste buried on farm land and discharged some waste through its plant's sewage system. Bliss son still lives on a Strecker Road property once owned by his father, from which the EPA only a few years ago finally removed more than 900 truckloads of dioxin-contaminated dirt in addition to an estimated 1,500-2,000 barrels of toxic chemicals. The activists appeal to the local governing body follows the public disclosure late last month of the existence of a previously undiscovered dioxin site in Ellisville. Clean ups at both places have remained at a standstill for several months now. Scientists disagree about how much it takes to put someone at risk. The other St. Louis companies used PCBs or other hazardous substances for different purposes.. Across the street in the park, a family of four walks with their two dogs along the asphalt trail that skirts the dioxin-contaminated site. This is the sort of place that, anywhere else, might seem like a harmless tourist trap. There are few records. Times Beach officials called the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, but it said it might be a year before it would be able to test. A few days after it reopened, the city received the results from its soil tests. She started doing amateur detective work. Bob Feild, who headed the EPAs clean up at Times Beach, says the agency is currently following up on several leads it received recently regarding other potential hazardous waste sites in the St. Louis area. You cant tell me dioxin has never caused anything. "There are too many unknowns at this point.". Records confirmed Bliss had been there. She remembers being able to let her kids run free without having to worry. The fencing is certainly just an interim measure, while we are preparing the final alternative, says Bob Feild of the EPA. "I don't think we're proud of the track record," said Fred A. Lafser, director of Missouri's Department of Natural Resources at one hearing. I think what they really wanted to do was just get people out of the flood plain., Like Sowards, Cheryl Reid Christman recalls how close everyone was. Each gap represents a former road. first published in the Riverfront Times (St. Louis), March 25, 1998 But aside from some resentment toward the park, this is a happy day. I dont care who you would ask, they would say yes.. Ultimately, the state accepted $94,000 in 1988 as its part of a $660,000 settlement with several companies, a fraction of the estimated overall cleanup cost. Although Mr. Lambarth was subpoenaed as a witness for the state, his testimony tended to support Mr. Bliss's contention that at the time he picked up the dioxin wastes, he did not know they were hazardous. So why were they in such a rush to get the barrels off the Callahan property? asks Shea. She is survived by her devoted The EPA intends to cap that area with soil and sod to limit human exposure and soil erosion. Taylor is a man called to causes. Judy Piatt, who was co-owner of Shenandoah Stables in 1971 when the arena was oiled for dust control, testified that the driver for Russell Bliss, a waste oil dealer, ''told me there was special stuff put in the oil for special customers that would kill flies.''. I look at it this way as a lawyer, says Steincamp. "What will happen to my kids in 10 years?". no. Just off Strecker Road, in the gully washes that feed into Caulks Creek, the first of thousands of barrels of toxic waste were discovered nearly 19 years ago. The cleanup crew immediately sent 592 drums to a landfill in Wright City, Mo., but more than 600 barrels were stored on-site, along with 500 cubic yards of soil. "There may be as many as 70 Times Beaches," said a senior official of the Environmental Protection Agency's hazardous waste cleanup program. Theyve dragged me through the courts and I dont think theyre ever gonna quit, he told CNN. When asked to comment last week, Monsanto spokeswoman Diane Herndon responded with this prepared statement: No information exists that any dioxin material was hauled by Bliss for Monsanto and so no material from Monsanto would have been sprayed on roads. You can see it, deal with it. If they did anything wrong, you were going to find out about it, because one of the mothers is going to tell.. By its order dated August 7, 1987, this Court found the NEPACCO defendants, IPC, Russell Bliss and Jerry-Russell Bliss, Inc. jointly and severally liable The citys nearly 2,500 residents were divided about what to do next, whether to stay or to ask for a buyout of their property through the EPAs Superfund. The same man was under investigation for spraying dioxin-laced oil on roads across the state in the early 1970s. When a Missouri assistant attorney general asked the waste hauler in 1977 to identify his top customers, the first words out of Bliss mouth were, Oh, I would say Monsanto.. He isnt here to argue that the Times Beach incinerator spewed poison from its smokestack. People were attempting to determine if Russell died in the accident, which was suspected to be a motorcycle accident. This was home. State and federal officials ignored the Centers for Disease Control when it confirmed that dioxin had contaminated an Imperial, Mo., subdivision and urged in 1975 that the dirt be moved to protect residents. But despite what McClellan implies, scientists agree that dioxin is dangerous. Jerry Bliss was the first witness today when the hearing resumed. 'Fog of bees' briefly interrupts PGA Tour's Mexico Open. Bliss became wealthy spraying it across the state, and he even sprayed it on his own farm, which he would have avoided had he known it was toxic, he has said. Eventually, one of the towns police officers, a 300-pound man nicknamed Tiny, whom Copeland remembers eating quite a few long johns from his parents shop, identified the culprits. In the center of the park is a large mound where the contaminated houses were buried, since only soil was burned. Russell Bliss was accused of picking up chemical waste from a plant in Verona in the early 70s, mixing it with used motor oil from service stations, and selling the toxic elixir to horse farms, churches, and small towns as a dust suppressant. Shipping the waste to Coffeyville would have been prohibitively expensive even if it had remained an option, according to one local official. Bliss testified at a subsequent DNR hearing that materials found at the site had come from Monsantos research lab. April 28 (UPI) -- A South Carolina woman won a $300,000 prize from a scratch-off lottery ticket just three years after winning a $250,000 lottery jackpot. (Burford would resign a month later, amid allegations of mismanagement of the Superfund program.). But this blue-collar town beneath gray granite bluffs on the muddy Meramec River has become a symbol of a national trauma no one seems to know how to control. By the time he answered the knock, the harried courier had already departed, leaving an unexpected Federal Express packet on his threshold. "Nobody told me there was anything bad in it," Bliss told a St. Louis newspaper in December. Then came a 7-Eleven. A boulder sits in the center of her well-manicured front yard, next to an inviting driveway leading to an attached garage. This is new growth. The buyers said they signed sales contracts without being told by their real-estate agents that their new homes were adjacent to a hazardous-waste site. Every year, former residents of Times Beach gather on the site to see old friends, tell stories, and inevitably shed a few tears. For three years, investigators were baffled. Dioxin is known to cause damage to the human reproductive and immunological systems. Dioxin, its silent, unseen. Crammed into a single bungalow, he and his siblings slept on pallets. Many have relocated with federal emergency help, but hard-headed "river rats," as they call themselves, are rebuilding modest homes in the "Show Me" state. Congress created the nation's first major program to clean up hazardous waste dumps only two years ago. DNR officials described the location of the dump as a ravine, filled 15 feet deep with rusty barrels. But for the average person, its still unwise to smoke four packs a day. Leistner rejects the notion that its all simply genetic. Both locations are suspected to have been contaminated by waste-oil operator Russell Bliss sometime in the early 1970s, according to the EPA. Even so, between picnics with neighbors, river recreation, town dances, and quite a few saloons, life in the Beach, as old-timers called it, was downright pastoral. '', Mr. Lambarth said that in a 1974 deposition he falsely denied ever hauling chemicals ''because I wanted to keep my job.'' Anyone can read what you share. Compelling evidence of Bliss misdeeds had been presented only months earlier as a part of the DNRs effort to prevent his son from being granted a hazardous waste haulers license. Even so, he has consistently denied having any knowledge that the materials were toxic. Sid Hammers wife didnt want to stay in Times Beach, but Sid didnt see anything wrong, Leistner says. Mr. Bliss contends he was not warned the dioxin wastes were hazardous and that his license has been denied unfairly because of past practices that were legal and commonplace. Crystals used to make the antiseptic had been found in barn soil later used as fill dirt. Bliss has accounted for spreading at least 7,000 gallons of dioxin-contaminated oil across the state, but officials fear there was much more. When he resigned, Leistner became acting mayor. Did it get into the water supply? The new site also raises the specter that there may be an untold number of other contaminated sites waiting to be found. (The market for hexachlorophene collapsed in 1972 when baby powder made with it killed 36 infants in France.). Truckers crudely called him the hemorrhoid with the Polaroid. He wrote ticket after ticket. The dioxin content in his mixture was estimated at 350 parts per million. How deep did it go down? Many in Times Beach were caught in their homes. Flood stage was 18.5 feet, and the water crested at nearly 43 feet. [1] [2] [3] Jerry Hicks died November 18, 2011, from cancer. Jordan, who has lived in her home for 43 years, recalls the late Odie Greenspon, once operated a breeding farm for trotters at the location of the present park.. Copeland made friends with a kid who went by the name Boner T. Bunch. But he was forced to do jail time anyway, on tax-evasion charges, since he didnt report his waste-hauling income to the IRS. Bunch lived at Cape Cod, a little motel on the edge of town. Jerry-Russell Bliss, Inc., appeals from denial of a license to transport hazardous waste. But when it marks the site of one of the nations worst environmental disasters, an embroidered-jean-jacket emporium can feel a little disrespectful. Another has a rare form of epilepsy. There are no signs to warn these park users that they are trekking through a hazardous waste site. That doesnt exist in this world. April 28 (UPI) -- A bear stuck in a Nevada tree was rescued by wildlife officials and firefighters who tranquilized the bruin and then caught the large animal in a tarp. It was beautiful., Yes. Even if he had known that what he was hauling was toxic, there were no laws against what he did. The town is gone, but the people remain. Its very confusing, the fact that theyve kind of lumped these properties together yet dealt with them differently. He was making money coming and going. Sometimes, its thought that people are asking for complete safety, complete security. Bliss has refused to cooperate, Lafser said. The more you smoke, the worse it is for your health. So she took matters into her own hands. It was nearly a week before people could return to begin the daunting task of rebuilding. Joseph P. Teasdale wrote a letter to Monsanto chairman John W. Hanley, requesting that the St. Louis-based chemical company pay for the cleanup. It was safe. The news, on the other hand, broke on the 22nd of December, with no mention of any accident. Its clean as a whistle, he repeats. I didnt have anything to do with their money.. The person told him he could take his tools, but hed have to leave the supplies. Those same officials are now siding with the developers, claiming that the once highly contaminated land is no longer a threat to human health, that it is now safe enough for backyard swingsets and tomato patches. He spent years lobbying against casino expansion, and hes now the communications director for embattled Rep. Todd Akin. One state environmental official then dismissed the CDC as "overly cautious.". But if youre in the market for something called a Menopause Meter, youre in the right place. 20,000 cubic yards of soil contaminated with 2,3,7,8-TCDD. 314-918-3000. Much to the chagrin of longtime residents, a trailer park opened, followed by a second one. Bliss has said he had no idea that toxic chemicals were involved. An early EPA investigation found portions of the Primm property and three other adjacent parcels to be contaminated. Bliss sprayed dioxin-contaminated oil on unpaved roads, parking lots, truck terminals and horse arenas as a dust suppressant. If theres any dioxin left, it doesnt seem to bother the wildlife. She won't ever come back to the white frame house that sits abandoned in this flood-ravaged town of 2,500 after learning that her two sons played in dirt contaminated with one of the most dangerous chemicals known to man: dioxin. Remember Times Beach: The Dioxin Disaster, 30 Years Later. No. "We had no authority to do anything until the Superfund law passed in 1980," Hedeman said. You want to make sure you do it right, and, in the process of doing it, safeguard the public. There are so many bad stories that I cheated people out of their money, Leistner says, her tone turning sharp. In 1971, Judy Piatt hired Bliss to spray waste oil on her horse arena, near Moscow Mills, to alleviate dust. See the article in its original context from. I remember this old guy he used to give us stuff. During the questioning, inmate Scott Rollins, a former Bliss driver, made a stuttering confession that he had picked up waste from Monsanto in Illinois. I do not believe that at all. The bulk of the park is down below, across the river. She still blames me. The concern's application was denied in early 1981, but Mr. Bliss has continued operating pending the appeal hearing that began here Monday morning. In an effort to control the dust, the city hired waste oil hauler Russell Bliss to spray them down, which he did multiple times between 1972 and 1976. "You'd tell people, 'it's got to be a chemical in the horse arena' and they'd look at you like you were nuts," she said. The next day, he was sure that somebody was doing it to get even with him, Leistner says. Due to budgetary constraints, long-range solutions now under consideration include alternative technologies shunned by the EPA during the Times Beach clean up. They married in California and moved in with his parents, sharing a two-bedroom house on Forest Road. They didnt take the barrels from the Bliss farm until 1996, when the incinerator was here. she asked. WebView the profiles of people named Jerry Russell. Teachers made them sit at the front of class, away from the rest of the students, in case they were contagious. February 13, 2022 1 Min Read. Dioxin is considered a probable human carcinogen and is known to cause reproductive and immunological health problems in animals and humans. In addition to the oil that he picked up at lube joints, he also hauled sludge from industrial facilities. A majority of residents realized that there were no available methods then for cleaning up dioxin, and they didnt see the point of rebuilding homes that had been destroyed by the flood anyway (especially since Times Beach had voted itself out of the National Flood Insurance Program a few years before). Yet we know there are people who are not sensitive, because of their lucky genetics. Man who sprayed dioxin says he tried to be responsible Officials won't know until next month, when 250 new dirt samples come back from the lab. Obviously I have to depend upon them to do their job and hope that we do ours.. She had cancer in her female organs that had metastasized to her blood, Leistner says. Mrs. Piatt was followed to the stand by Gary Lambarth, a former Bliss driver, who testified that he lied about hauling chemicals in a 1974 deposition because his former boss had told him ''to keep my memory fuzzy about things like that. Remember Times Beach: The Dioxin Disaster, 30 Years The EPA and CDC have each published massive documents detailing the many health hazards associated with it. Sometimes its just best to leave well enough alone.. I saw people that lived in the community lose their jobs, their churches, their homes, health problems. Wildwood residents originally voted to approve the creation of the municipality to control development, thereby ensuring that greenspace would be preserved. To broadcast the crimeand thereby maximize the thrillthey stashed their loot atop the towns police station. By narrowing its focus to a single, distant source, the EPA effectively eliminated more than a dozen local industries from closer scrutiny in the case even though Bliss also accepted liquid waste from them. Over several weeks, 11 cats and four dogs dropped dead nearby. The announcement of the new site came only weeks after the EPA and DNR had completed their controversial incineration project at Ironically, one of the sources of dioxin is incineration itself. When a driver frequently moves from team to team, hes often called a journeyman.. Current Address: ETZR Strecker Rd, Ballwin, MO. Man, I loved living down here, he says. It was in Illinois and it had a big fence around it. April 29 (UPI) -- An Australian tourist facing possible flogging after being accused of going on a drunken nude rampage in the Indonesian province of Ache says he felt "almost possessed" at the time. She had a brand-new leather jacket that had gotten dirty in the flood. Contacted by phone last Friday at EPA headquarters in Kansas City, Martha Steincamp, regional counsel for the EPA, could not provide details on the Bliss-Ellisville cleanups and referred all questions on the matter to Bob Feild, the agencys project manager. I believe that the whole area there is littered with contamination pockets, she says. Indeed, it borders on negligence. This suggests that some of the mixed hazardous waste that Bliss sprayed came from another source or sources. Dec 17, 1985) The court holds that the state Hazardous Waste The plant was owned by a subsidiary of Syntex, the company ultimately held liable for the eastern Missouri Superfund clean up. If she had a couple of drinks at Bucks Place, she could walk home. She contacted authorities, but their response came too slowly for her. As the offers improved slightly, many of the holdouts grudgingly gave in. In this instance, however, because the highest level of dioxin is believed to be buried more than a foot deep, it has been deemed safe by the EPA. Every morning, Bunch would come to the donut shop. One document that TBAG copied is a verbatim transcript of an interview conducted by an EPA official in 1980 at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. Steve Taylor (at left) never lived in Times Beach, but he did spend time at one of the horse farms where Bliss sprayed. Into it would be loaded all of the contaminated soil, not just from Times Beach, but from dioxin sites across Missouri. Jerry Lewis is, in spite of it all, still alive. If the city approves their respective developments, Wurm and Byrne hope to avoid this legal pitfall by having buyers sign a disclosure form saying that they were told in advance of the lands history. On any given afternoon, youre bound to see deer wandering in the woods. The activist points out that no PCBs were found in southwest Missouri in the tanks at the Verona, Mo. The offers were very low, so we got organized, Leistner says. Theres plenty of parking, a playground, and lots of picnic tables. On the other side of the road, at 210 Strecker Rd., developer Larry Wurm of James Properties Inc. is proposing to build Wildwood Ridge, an 11-home development on 7.6 acres of land now owned by Jean Callahan. Leistner has four children, three girls and a boy. Byrne Builders Inc. to build Strecker Forest, 31 houses will be constructed on the 18.5-acre tract. WebJerry Russell Bliss, Age 66. The toxic chemical was contained in waste oil Bliss' company sprayed on roads, parking lots, truck terminals and horse arenas for dust control. She was a wonderful friend, as evidenced by her many visitors. Hazardous materials have been identified in 17 waste disposal locations on the site. I will bet you two weeks pay there is no dioxin on your streets, she recalls Bliss telling her. Others drove out through the rising water, trying to follow the roads they couldnt see. "You win a battle, you stick up a flag," said the Chrysler assembly line worker. It was like everybody was related to everybody, Leistner says. The first offers were made that month.

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