Regarding Howes Leather

1.  PRESERVING CLEAN WATER! 

Fighting for clean water began when former State Senator Walt Helmick became the so-called ‘Economic Coordinator’ for Pocahontas County in charge of the clean-up of the toxic-waste site known as ‘Howes Leather’, located in Frank, WV.  The estimated ‘clean-up’ cost was $15 - $20 Million, but since Howes Leather was a large donor to State Senator Helmick, Howes simply ‘donated’ their toxic-waste site to the county for a $250,000.00 tax-write-off, and the county then became responsible for the ‘clean-up’.  Helmick simply had the berms of the toxic-holding-ponds shaved from 12 feet to 3 feet, then siphoned off the toxic-waste until a rain storm broke open the remaining berms and poured 13 Million gallons of toxic-waste into the Greenbrier River closing the water intake for Lewisburg for up to a week – since Lewisburg uses the Greenbrier River for its city drinking water!    

Commission Candidate Norman Lee Alderman videotaped the shaved berms & the siphoning of the toxic-pond into the Greenbrier River, placed the video on the Internet, and the county was fined $9,000.00 for its violations.  Alderman is proud of raising the issue of clean water, and spend much time in Charleston trying to get the State-DEP to enforce the laws, including escorting a team from DEP and DNR around the former Howes Leather site, showing them where carcinogenic transformers were buried.  The DEP did little to nothing! 

One of the first things that Candidates Norman Lee Alderman (Rep-SD) & Patti Heinemann (Dem-ND) will do at the first meeting in January 2015, if elected, is to finish the clean-up of Howes and have the dangerous buried transformers containing PCB & Chromium IV immediately removed so that these toxic chemicals are no longer a health threat to the people of Frank and Durbin.