When two men claiming to represent Sunset Heights Acorn, a community group opposing the reopening of Asarco, announced to the press April 30 that the group no longer existed, it marked the public escalation of what has become a sort of ground war in the neighborhood over the issue of how to deal with the legacy and the future of the copper smelter.
And with their departure, Robert Moreno and Joseph Nevarez are attempting to raise questions over the legitimacy of Acorn's involvement in the neighborhood. In the process, they also have raised questions about the nature of community involvement, the right of people to organize, and Asarco's role in the process.
Acorn, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, is the nation's largest community organization of low- and moderate-income families. According to the Acorn website [ link], the organization was founded in 1970 and is dedicated to social justice issues and building stronger communities. However, Nevarez, the former treasurer of Sunset Heights Acorn, now sees the organization in a different light.
"They claim to be grass roots, but when the agendas were being composed by the community they (Acorn leadership) would alter it," said Nevarez, the former treasurer of the group. "They were too hard up about the Asarco situation, without looking into the other things of concern to the people, like lighting and parks."
Theresa Dominguez, chair of the Sunset Heights Acorn group, said Acorn was addressing such issues, in addition to the Asarco problem. She said the Sunset Heights Acorn membership chose to make Asarco one of the issues it addressed, and most have decided to stay with the group despite Moreno's and Nevarez's defection.
"My only response to people when stuff like that happens is I'm glad we live in a country where we can have different opinions. I'm not there to squash anyone's opinion, I'm there to lay out facts. We (the group) made a choice (to address the Asarco issue)," Dominguez said.
She said the day after the April 30 announcement by Nevarez and Moreno "we went back and canvassed the neighborhood again to see whether we were doing what people want and ... the priority was the same -- the cleanup, to make our houses safe for the kids in the future."
"THE COMPANY IS ADVISING THEM"
Nevarez claimed at the April 30 press conference that he was taking the members, about 15 people, with him to his new group.
"Who we are now is the Sunset Heights Association of Community Friends," he said. "This new association represents Sunset Heights."
Nevarez also tried to withdraw Sunset Heights Acorn from the contested case hearing, and was not definitive when asked his position on whether Asarco should reopen.
"That's under the city, we can't do anything," Nevarez said.
He was definitive as to what he thought of the official status of Sunset Heights Acorn: "We undid the old business."
Lawyer Michael Wyatt, who is representing Sunset Heights Acorn as one of several affected parties in the contested case hearing, noted Asarco's immediate attempt to have Acorn thrown out of the case following the April 30 news conference by Moreno and Nevarez. The news conference was Saturday, and Asarco the following Monday morning filed papers to have Acorn and Wyatt removed from the case.
"Asarco filed immediately, requesting I be removed from the case and they not have to respond to discovery, so quickly as to make one wonder if they were not aware of it in advance," Wyatt said. "It appears to me Asarco has been in touch with these people."
However, the administrative law judges in Austin refused to recognize the dissolution of Sunset Heights Acorn, which remains a party to the permit hearing [link] . The trial-like hearing will be held in El Paso on July 11.
The organization says while Nevarez and Moreno are welcome to form their own group, they have no standing within Acorn.
"A couple of disaffected members from the Sunset Heights chapter decided to not follow the organizational protocol," said Jose Manuel Escobedo, the citywide Acorn organizer. He said they did not inform the Sunset Heights Acorn membership -- including Dominguez, the co-chair -- of the meeting, and did not distribute an agenda. He said Nevarez and Moreno since have been kicked out of Acorn.
In fact, he said, without naming anyone, that a group of "former employees" showed up to an Acorn meeting May 12 and disrupted it.
He wondered if Asarco is, if not behind the split, at least taking advantage of it.
"I believe the company is advising them on what steps to take," Escobedo said.
Nevarez said he has not received any money from Asarco.
"No, Asarco wants to give us money, and other people in the district (the people who have not had cleanups)," Nevarez said. "That will be coming down in the future, hopefully in the next months."
He declined to elaborate.
Nevarez also said he continues to want to have the soil in Sunset Heights cleaned. But he does not want to affiliate with Acorn.
"TARGETING ASARCO'S GOODWILL"
"We're targeting Asarco's goodwill to get these things cleaned up," Nevarez said, pointing to the $2 million Asarco has pledged for yard cleanup. That money is part of a $100 million trust fund [ link] created in 2003. However, it is estimated it will cost several times that for the clean up of hundreds of El Paso yards.
Lairy Johnson, Asarco's environmental manager and the person who serves as the company's community liaison, said the company knew there was a conflict in Sunset Heights Acorn, and knew the press conference was going to take place a few days before it did. He said he was out of town when it happened.
Johnson also said his company would not give cash to any groups.
"We'd rather do something for them rather than give them money," he said.
Teresa Montoya, whose company Teresa Montoya Communications serves as a liaison for the press and others interested in Asarco, said someone, she wasn't sure who, called to tell her about the news conference and ask if someone from Asarco could attend.
She said she was out of town that day. She met both Nevarez and Moreno after the press conference, she said.
"They came by my office after to say they dissolved Acorn and started new group and they wanted to set up meeting with Lairy Johnson," she said. "They haven't changed their goals in getting their yards cleaned up."
Johnson said he does not believe opposition to Asarco is widespread in the neighborhood.
"Everywhere I go I always get thumbs up. I got women lighting candles at mass for Asarco. Very rarely do I get anything negative," he said.
He said if Asarco supported groups friendly to the company, it would be no different than environmental groups giving money to Acorn for the legal fees associated with contesting the permit or fighting for cleanup funding.
ASARCO'S LEGACY AND PRESENT BATTLES
Asarco, which as been in operation for more than 100 years, is fighting two immediate public battles -- for its right to reopen, and how to handle the charges that it's responsible for soil contamination in Sunset Heights and other neighborhoods. The giant smelter, which ceased operations in 1999, has filed an application to reopen, a move that has been met with opposition from most local public officials and civic groups.
However, the smelter's legacy is a more complex issue, with the community split over how to deal with replacing soil in neighborhoods affected by Asarco -- Sunset Heights, Kern Place, Mesita, Buena Vista and Rim Road -- and what to do if the smelter loses its battle to reopen and walks away from any liability related to the cleanup.
And the concerns of the El Paso community organizations are not unique. Asarco operations throughout the country, from Washington State to Montana to Nebraska, are facing similar challenges related to environmental contamination and cleanup costs. [link] of contamination and liability .
In El Paso, Asarco claims it is unfair and scientifically unfounded [link] to single out the company for lead and arsenic contamination in the soil of neighborhoods around the refinery. It also questions whether the soil contamination is significant from the standpoint of public health, pointing to studies [link] of children's blood lead levels in Sunset Heights and Mesita that do not indicate health problems.
Other groups, such as Get the Lead Out, [link] point to a long history of pollution caused by Asarco. They point to the removal of an entire worker community, called Smeltertown [link], in the 1970s, when elevated blood lead levels were found in the majority of its residents. The neighborhood at the base of the facility was razed and the residents were relocated.
When the Centers for Disease Control offered the city funding for continued testing and monitoring of lead poisoning in children in the area, the city rejected the offer. [link] Instead, El Paso leaders, including the El Paso Chamber of Commerce and current director of the City-County Health District, Dr. Jorge Magaña, supported a survey conducted by a scientist hired by Asarco.
SUNSET HEIGHTS ACORN
Into this mix comes the Sunset Heights Acorn.
The initial goals of the group had nothing to do with Asarco, said Dominguez, who joined after a misunderstanding.
"When I was two years old we moved from Mexico to live with a great aunt in Sunset Heights," said Dominguez, who now lives in Horizon City and attends Holy Family Church in Sunset on Sundays. "My aunt still lives there. She can't go to meetings to represent herself, and when she first got a flier for Acorn she thought it said her taxes were going up.
"When I got there I found out it was not somebody trying to raise taxes, and it was not somebody trying to solve our problems, but somebody trying to empower us," Dominguez said. "The first thing we went to work on was going before CDBG (a city of El Paso granting department) to ask for funding for a senior citizens center."
She said her involvement with Acorn began in September or October. It was shortly after that she brought up the issue of Asarco's request to renew its permit, she said. The membership, about 50 people, voted to take part in the contested case hearing. They received affected party status and were made part of the case, which will be heard in El Paso July 11.
Dominguez said that the group membership in Sunset Heights now is a few shy of 30.
DIFFERING OPINIONS
While almost everyone in the neighborhood -- including another group, the Sunset Heights Improvement Association -- agrees on opposing the smelter's reopening, not all concur on how to handle cleanup and liability issues.
"We have a policy letter on file with the city that essentially says we're not in favor of Asarco reopening, and it also says we're not in favor of Superfund," said Doug Yost, president of the group.
Superfund was one of the options for city officials in deciding how to pursue cleanup options. City Council, citing the belief that Superfund status would hurt the city, decided instead to hire lawyers to sue Asarco.
Yost said the issue is not the soil, it's public health.
"City County (health district) figures show blood lead levels are less than national levels and dropping," Yost said. "The problem is not manifested in a neighborhood-wide health risk."
He said it was not fair to single out Asarco when the potential sources of contamination -- for example, lead paint in the neighborhood's houses, which were built starting almost 100 years ago -- are so prevalent.
"I don't think Asarco is solely responsible. I think it was a contributor but again so was General Motors and Sherwin Williams, so was everyone who put lead in their product," Yost said. He went on, noting arsenic was used in pressure-treated wood until recently, and in pesticides.
Another member of the improvement association, Soledad Galvan, supports Asarco wholeheartedly and does want it to reopen.
"My lungs are clear and I've lived here all my life," she said.
"THEY HAVE NO RIGHT" OR "A VERY VIABLE ROLE"?
Of Acorn, she said, "they have no right whatsoever" to represent the neighborhood.
"Asarco has always helped me. People don't realize that," Galvan said. She said the company has given her turkeys to give to families in the neighborhood for the past 18 years at Thanksgiving and Christmas. It also has given refrigerators to her church, Holy Family Church, the same one Dominguez attends, as well as participated in other charity events.
"They always help me, all I have to do is call them and within minutes they come in the little red truck," Galvan said.
But Ed Patrykus, another long-time neighborhood resident who is a member of Acorn and a party to the permit opposition, said Asarco "has affected the health of a lot of the people around here, it's affected the environment around here.
"All the years I lived here since early 1969, I remember sometimes tasting that lead coppery taste in the air but I never gave it much thought.
"I worked on a survey crew at Asarco one summer measuring plant for recovery plant in the early 70s. We used masks, it was very gassy and desolate and gray. We made a grid, and at the main points we put tin shiners and in a few weeks they were eaten up.
"But I never gave it much thought until years later I started to be educated on the impact of Asarco, and industry and so forth," Patrykus said.
Lisa Colquitt-Munoz, an El Paso Independent School District trustee and neighborhood resident, said that she opposes the refinery's reopening.
"I think its bad policy for the economic growth of the city to have a smelter less than two miles from downtown and the university," she said.
She also has questions about how the situation was handled: "I tried to raise the question with the EPA, why are you doing this so quickly ... and instead of taking out soil and replacing it, cover it with rocks and new landscaping for less cost and make the neighborhood more pleasing."
Such questions add to the neighborhood's concern over how to handle Asarco from this point on. However, Colquitt-Munoz said, it is perfectly legitimate for Acorn to take on a role in the issue.
She said many residents are long-time homeowners who are naturally conservative and suspicious about outside groups trying to help them organize around issues.
``There are not a whole lot of families and new people coming in who are vocal. Many families tend to be low-income renters, and they may be hesitant to speak up because they are not used to it, and they have no vested interest as property owners," Colquitt-Munoz said. "If they (Acorn) can be a catalyst to serve as a voice for people ... that's a very viable role for Acorn or any other community organization to fill."
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