To: tejek who wrote (572283 ) 6/17/2010 5:52:37 PM From: Brumar89 1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) | Respond to not for one second do I want BP to weasel out of paying for the damage they have done which from all accounts is at least in part due to BP negligence. The oil industry/corp. has had a history is this country of paying little for the damage they do. I posted about Occidental and Love Canal this AM. Last week, I posted how Exxon was able to reduce their penalties for the Valdez spill from $5 billion to $500 million. That's not reasonable given the level of damage done. At the time of the dump's closure, Niagara Falls' population began to expand drastically. The local school board was desperate for land, and attempted to purchase an area of property from Hooker Chemical that had been used to bury toxic waste. The corporation refused to sell, citing safety concerns, and even took members of the school board to the canal and drilled several bore holes through the clay, to demonstrate that there were toxic chemicals below the surface. However, the board refused to capitulate.[11] Eventually, faced with the property being condemned and/or expropriated, Hooker Chemical agreed to sell on the condition that the board buy the entire property for one dollar. In the agreement signed on April 28, 1953, Hooker included a seventeen line caveat that explained the dangers of building on the site. Hooker was thus released from all legal obligations should lawsuits arise in the future [12].Hooker in fact even stated that the area should be sealed off "so as to prevent the possibility of persons or animals coming in contact with the dumped materials." [13] en.wikipedia.org Message 24814852
