Boiling Frogs-Intel vs. the Village

A BRIEF HISTORY OF INTEL BONDS IN SANDOVAL COUNTY

2011-11-30T19:47:00.000-08:00

From the Sandoval Signpost December 2011

—Barbara Rockwell

Many people think of Intel as the ‘crown jewel’ of New Mexico’s economy. Its apologists would argue that Intel provides a lot of jobs, but these jobs have come at a great price for the people of Sandoval County.

The first industrial revenue bond (IRB) for $2 billion was issued in 1993. It was a hot night in August, and the hearing in the County Commission meeting room was over in forty minutes. The bond issue would be purchased by an Intel subsidiary, thus saving Intel almost a half-billion in taxes. Not allowed to speak that night was Eric Schmieder, an economist who analyzed the bond deal for Southwest Organizing Project. He complained the next day in a letter to Commission Chair Joe Lang that “the vote to approve the Intel package was rushed and negligent…with no benefit analysis on the County’s part!” Schmieder noted that the County was committed to property tax abatement for thirty years that would cost the County $300 million. The second tax subsidy was the avoidance of the New Mexico Gross Receipts Tax, a break amounting to another $50 million from this one bond issue, which brought up another point from Schmieder: “The 30-year lease requires Sandoval County to issue bonds whenever it needs more funds, sort of a Bond Charge Card, with further, clear provisions in the lease for Intel to sue to assure County compliance with the terms.” The bond also gave a tax credit of one million dollars for job training.

Intel was back in 1995, this time with another application for an $8 billion IRB from Sandoval County, breaking the record of its previous $2 billion bond, the largest in the history of America. How ironic that one of the poorest counties in the country, Sandoval County, would grant IRBs to one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. This bond issue received all the same tax breaks as the first one, amounting to $480 million. This time around, some Santa Fe lawmakers questioned the deal, thinking the tax breaks had gotten out of hand. Their concern was that the $480 million in tax breaks over thirty years would deprive Rio Rancho of the tax base it should get from Intel to build schools, roads, and other infrastructure. Intel argues that New Mexico was competing against countries that completely subsidize their high-tech companies. Nevertheless, no doubt feeling the pressure, Intel responded by giving $28.5 million for the construction of a new high school in Rio Rancho. The offer was worth about one one-hundredth of the real value of the Intel obligation, and Intel knew it. Some state lawmakers still thought it was a “real bad deal.” The Wall Street Journal quoted these lawmakers in a front-page article that ran under the headline: “Growing Pains—Rio Rancho Wooed Industry and Got It, Plus Financial Woes.” The Sandoval County Commission held what was supposed to be three public hearings on the bond issue in mid-August. They shut it down after the first meeting, standing-room only, at the Courthouse. Presentation was done by First Albany Corp, a New York-based firm that was there to demonstrate the cost-benefit analysis of the bond. Their dog and pony show was ludicrous with slides full of spelling and math errors that even us local yokels could see right through. According to their figures, the State of New Mexico would gain about $165 million over ten years from the bond. However, even factoring in the one thousand jobs and the $30 million ‘donation’ for the high school, Sandoval County would lose $27 million in taxes over the same ten-year period. Intel was the one who would really make out with $455 million more in tax breaks over the next ten years, in addition to the $114 million to $250 million (depending on whose figures you used) in tax breaks from the first bond. Locals asked impertinent questions like “why does it take $455 million to generate 1,000 new jobs? That’s $455,000 per job!” a priest from Bernalillo, Father Bill, asked why this rich corporation was getting big tax breaks when his parishioners were struggling to survive. One viejo called the high school gift a “bribe.”

The $8 billion IRB went through in September. Economists from UNM had written to Sandoval County “It is our professional opinion that the First Albany report is so seriously flawed that it cannot provide a reasonable basis for decision-making.”

In July 2004, a study came out from the NM Bureau of Business and Economic Research that showed the 1995 IRB cost Sandoval County $15 million in 2002 alone. That comes out to $225 million over the fifteen-year life of the $8 billion bond, almost ten times the $27 million net loss originally predicted.

The very next month, the Sandoval County Commission announced a $16 billion IRB for Intel, the largest ever (again) in US history. The deal was made behind closed doors in violation of the State’s Open Meetings Act with Daymon Ely as the County’s chief negotiator. The IRB was replete with all the usual tax breaks, estimated at $2 billion. Intel agreed to pay $95 million in “supplemental lease payments” during the first fifteen years of the thirty-year life of the bonds. Ely wanted to use $16 million of that amount to purchase a locomotive and cars for what would become the RailRunner. Ely claimed to be “unaware” of the financial impact that the tax breaks would have on Sandoval County, only that his pet project for the state would benefit.

Now it is 2011, and Intel Rio Rancho, for the first time in its thirty year history in New Mexico, will pay property taxes of $728,165 on property assessed at $38.2 million. They still don’t pay one thin dime in any other tax, including gross receipts—one we all pay. It will be interesting to see if Intel continues with its ‘charitable’ donations, the largesse it has showered on libraries, youth centers, and other community causes over the years. In 1997, the mayor of Belen, Costa Rica, visited Corrales and told us that Intel moved into his town with all the usual tax breaks from the federal government, but Belen imposed its own municipal tax. Intel took the city to court and lost. Intel responded by stopping all donations to local charitable causes. Mayor Alvarado said, “I have concluded that the principle reason Intel is so opposed to paying taxes is that they want to donate to specific projects that earn them good will. They want the appearance of being very generous, but without the obligation.”

One wonders, will that be Intel’s response in Sandoval County now that it has to pony up some property tax?

Barbara Rockwell is the author of “Boiling Frogs: Intel vs. the Village,” a fully-documented report on the environmental struggle between Corrales citizens and Intel. Available at Placitas Community Library.

Letter from Rosemary Keefe

2011-04-30T10:05:00.000-07:00

Friends in Corrales have urged me to tell my story to help stop pollution from Intel and stop their proposed expansion. Two weeks ago I organized a forum on saving the NM environment. State Land Commissioner Dr. Ray Powell and Barbara Rockwell both spoke. The audience was roused for action. Today the Albuquerque Journal reports that Intel is rallying people to request immediate expansion. It further reports that "studies funded by the Environmental Department and the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, 'have found no evidence of negative health effects from Intel emissions.'” (D-4) This may be in response to a grassroots petition in Corrales to NMED to deny the request for expansion.

Here's my story: When I moved to NM five years ago on my final sabbatical from the University of Wisconsin, Life without Stress washed over me. Hallelujah! I celebrated by taking hour-long walks every day up Morning Sun Trail directly under Intel on Hop Tree Trail, or I trudged up another road off Loma Larga also up to Intel--inhaling the "pure desert air" for my health. I was probably sucking in deadly gases and fine particle silica. The last four months of 2007 in Scotland, my last work for Wisconsin, I enjoyed tromping in the highlands and climbing the steep streets of Edinburgh. Early in 2008 in Corrales my throat seized up coughing on one of my walks. I suspected chemicals from Intel from the chemical taste in the back of my throat. Pollution? No problem. I'd been breathing on a polluted planet all my life--in stressful conditions. A little more pollution won't kill me. HA!

I paid no attention to the cough that wouldn't go away because I've always been healthy. In Feb 2009 I went to a new primary care doctor to get referral to physical therapy for my arthritic knees and mentioned the cough I'd had for a year. She diagnosed asthma and gave me a fistful of inhalers. Dutifully I inhaled meds that irritated my cough. No improvement. She'd taken a chest x-ray (CXR) in her office on 2/9/09, but I didn't see the radiologist's report until 14 months later. Early in 2010 my cough was seriously interfering with my performance of Mabel Dodge Luhan for NM Humanities Council Chautauqua "living history." I couldn't take a deep breath without triggering a cough, and the coughing that wouldn't stop often prevented my intake of air. My PCP ordered another CXR. It was only when I went for a CT scan in April 2010 that I saw a radiologist report on my CXR taken 2/9/09. Both CXR reports from 2/09 and 4/10 said "Pulmonary Fibrosis." CT scan confirmed PF.

Researching my past medical history, I discovered I'd had a CXR taken in Wisconsin end of 2004. A radiologist at NW Imaging put the three CXRs from Wisconsin 10/25/04 and from NM in 2/09 and 4/10 on screens side by side. Even with my untrained eye I could see dramatic changes in my lungs in 3 years and 3 months from Wisconsin to NM. The radiologist said he'd never seen such damage in so short a time.

I'd been looking forward to years of creativity (reviewing plays, writing memoirs, teaching creativity, performing) and travel in retirement. Now I'm told the Grim Reaper is nipping at my heels more closely than I'd imagined. I've always led a healthy active life. But for the last four months, I've needed oxygen almost 24/7, and I've had to curtail places I go. I can only review in theaters where I can drive right to the door. I hate to have to leave my beautiful home in order to breathe. Today one of my doctors urges me to consider a lung transplant--very dangerous for those over 60. I'm 71. "But you're healthy otherwise and you contribute so much to society," he says. It's my only hope--but a long shot.

Does Intel toxic pollution have anything to do with shortening my life and making what's left of it difficult every day? "Negative health effects from Intel emissions" are pretty obvious to me.

Protesting County Manager Firing

2011-04-19T11:20:00.000-07:00

Darryl Madalena, Chairman
Sandoval County Commission
711 Camino del Pueblo
Bernalillo, NM 87004

April 17, 2011

Dear Mr. Madalena,

As a resident of Sandoval County, and certainly as a taxpayer in this county, I wish to register my anger and dismay at the Sandoval County Commission’s firing of County Manager, Juan Vigil. Those of you who voted to fire Mr. Vigil should fire yourselves!

Juan Vigil’s “crime” was for doing his job when he attempted to assess the Intel plant for property taxes on its $38 million-dollar, 30 acre, ¾ mile-long facility for the first time in thirty years, as per Intel’s agreement with the state. While Sandoval County residents are losing their homes and properties because they can’t afford to pay real estate taxes, this arrogant, multi-billion-dollar firm doesn’t believe it should pay anything.

Altogether, Intel has obtained a total of 26 BILLION dollars in Industrial Revenue Bonds from unsophisticated Sandoval County officials. The capital we Sandoval County residents backed for Intel allowed them to build plants in Arizona, Oregon, Ireland, China and Israel. The IRBs, millions in tax breaks, and other forms of government largesse were to encourage the company to hire a promised 6,000 local employees—at a cost to New Mexico of some $600,000 per promised job. Intel now employs about 3,000, many of them hired from out of state. Like other large multinationals operating in New Mexico, the company reports its in-state earnings out of state and thus avoids paying state taxes

As a small business owner for over three decades, an employer who has created jobs, generated gross receipts taxes, and dutifully paid a variety of taxes on my employees’ earnings as well as my own real estate and income taxes, where are MY tax breaks from the magnanimous state of New Mexico and Sandoval County?

This company thinks Sandoval County officials are yahoos, fools, who will roll over and play dead for a company that cares nothing about our community. Your firing Juan Vigil proves that they’re not wrong.

I live within two miles of the Rio Rancho plant. Here’s my account of our community’s history with Intel.

Intel is currently requesting a permit revision, in order to more than double the number of thermal oxidizers at its Rio Rancho plant, hinting that they’re “pre-positioning” the company for an expansion. Intel has not solved their years-long problems with this type of pollution abatement equipment, including those recently installed, and now they intend to increase the number of them. Are they “pre-positioning” their factories to increase the quantities of toxic emissions as well?

When Intel’s pollution equipment fails, and it often fails for weeks at a time, the company releases into our airshed unknown quantities of highly toxic air pollutants, including, but not limited to hydrogen fluoride, arsenic, mercury, phosgene (mustard gas), carbon tetrachloride (a known carcinogen), hydrochloric acid, phosphine, and more than 70 other federally designated Hazardous Air Pollutants.

Each of these chemicals is known to be lethal in small doses, but no one knows what the longterm or synergistic effects are when these noxious substances are released into our atmosphere. Can any thinking being believe that this stuff is not harmful to residents? Our animals? Our plants?

Under Intel’s current “minor source permit,” described by EPA itself and NMED permit writers as a “sham” permit, the corporation is allowed to release up to 24 T of HAPs into the air annually. There are no hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly limits on these emissions. In theory, Intel could release all of its annual allotment of phosgene into the air at once, killing every living thing for miles, and not be out of compliance with this ineffectual permit.

There is no independent monitoring of Intel’s stacks—zero, zip, none. Instead, regulators allow the company to “estimate” its toxic releases. In a surprise visit in December, 2009, EPA found that Intel underreported one chemical alone by 30%. They cited an additional dozen “areas of concern for the health and safety” of Intel’s neighbors. When Intel’s own consultants have demonstrated that the company’s emissions calculations are way off, especially when they report zero emissions, Intel blithely reports these figures as “false positives.”

This is a company with a less than proud history of its relationship with the community that has helped fund its expansions here and overseas. The ink on the 1993 “Good Neighbor Agreement,” negotiated among Corrales residents, the Village Council, and Intel, was no sooner dry than Intel tossed it into a wastebasket.

For years, Intel employees have laughed in public meetings at local residents who raise legitimate concerns about our health and safety, calling us “The Crazies.” The company, and the overly friendly Environmental Improvement Board, have not allowed residents to speak in public meetings on behalf of the community, even those who are recognized, knowledgeable scientists. The results of government agencies’ tests of Intel emissions are kept from the public for years, even after Intel and NMED have seen them. In 2004, the two-year-long EPA task force was shut down by NMED’s Secretary Ron Curry two hours before a Department of Health employee was going to report on a correlation between the times of residents’ health complaints and Intel’s toxic releases; NMED, rather than task force members, wrote the study’s final report.

In the March 28, 2011 public meeting about this latest permit revision request, more than half the audience were Intel employees. Were they on the clock when one after the other, they stood to praise their employer? Intel’s representative, Sarah Chávez, stated that the Good Neighbor Agreement was still in force and that Intel had agreed to some hourly limits on emissions. Her statement is untruthful.

Intel’s PR Department would like the public to believe that the Community Environmental Working Group represents the public. Wrong. CEWG is wholly staffed, funded, organized, and controlled by the corporation.

Employees who report unsafe conditions, who refuse to falsify safety reports, or who otherwise blow the whistle on the company for shoddy/dangerous/illegal business practices are summarily fired and blackballed, making it difficult for them to find work elsewhere. The company often does not report accidents that send its employees to the hospital. A contract worker badly burned by faulty equipment at the Rio Rancho plant was fired by his company, owned by an Intel executive, denied workmen’s compensation, and soon ran out of health coverage for his painful, disabling injuries.

The company has a long history of losing multimillion-dollar court battles, being convicted and fined for illegal business practices. Successful plaintiffs include AMD, the European Union, and the IRS, among others. Intel left three Superfund sites behind in California. Who pays for the clean-ups? When on rare occasions Intel is fined for local violations, the company makes a grandiose “donation” to the community.

The State of New Mexico’s NMED regulators who fail to roll over and play the Company Song for Intel are moved to other jobs or strongly encouraged to retire. NMED employees claim they are fully compliant with their department’s mandate to protect the health and safety of the people of New Mexico. Sorry—I don’t believe it; I’ve seen too much. An arrogant, multi-billion dollar enterprise is cheating the people of New Mexico out of our once-clean air, our endangered water supply, thousands of promised jobs, and millions in owed revenues. In exchange, they’re subjecting residents to tons of dangerous, often lethal chemicals, tons of crystalline silica, environmental degradation, and aquifer depletion. Such a deal.

Humans can be hypochondriacs, but animals? The vet who inspected two dead prize Corrales llamas attributed their demise to “something in the air.” The autopsy on a resident’s treasured dog showed huge quantities of solvents and chemicals in her body that could only have come from Intel.

Not until Intel cleans up its emissions should the company receive any further assistance from the State of New Mexico and its hard-working, tax-paying citizens.

Sincerely,

Martha J. Egan

The Firing of Juan Vigil, Sandoval County Manager

2011-04-19T11:15:00.001-07:00

Shame on the Sandoval County Commission for firing the first county official who has ever stood up for the people against Intel a company that has never paid one dime in taxes in the 30 years they have been in NM. Apparently, Mr. Vigil was not humble enough to the giant when he asked for a few crumbs for the peasants so off with his head !

It was a cowardly deed by the Commission to fire this worthy man.

At long last, we the people of Sandoval County had a county official with the courage to stand up for us to these bullies and demand that Intel pay property taxes like the rest of us do. Intel makes about 75% of its profits from its operation here in NM while sucking down three billion gallons of water each and every year and otherwise using every infrastructure resource this poor County can muster on its behalf. On top of that insult, Intel is poisoning the neighbors in its vicinity. Did you know that the pulmonary fibrosis rate is 11 times the national rate and the ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) rate is 25 times the national rate? Do you even care? My family moved away from that blight 15 years ago and we thank God every day that we did; otherwise, we might now be like friends and neighbors who are battling - or dead - from these terminal diseases.

I implore you to reverse this bad decision and rehire Mr. Vigil. We need him !!

Meeting Gone Ballistic

2011-02-27T11:21:00.000-08:00

Intel recently held a meeting in Corrales to inform residents about its proposed permit revision that would double the number of thermal oxidizers and cooling towers thus paving the way for increased production. A Corrales resident who attended the meeting reported that Intel representatives totally lost control of the meeting when a group of enraged locals began loudly protesting. One man, who has had to drill three wells to keep up with his falling water table shouted that if this permit was approved, he would be coming up to the plant with his double-barreled shotgun to show them what he thought of it. A woman who lives just below Intel told of how her two llamas died mysteriously. Her vet said "it must be something in the air." Another grandmother told of how her daughter would not allow her granddaughter to visit at her home because of the risk from Intel. Another woman said that she knew the Intel people were being paid to defend their bosses but that "you know in your heart of hearts that you are poisoning your neighbors." All of these people were previously unknown to CRCAW .....

The seemingly newsworthy events at this meeting were not reported in the local press - other than the Corrales Comment. The blackout on Intel news continues...

The regularly scheduled meeting of Intel's Community Environmental Working Group for the following week was cancelled. Time to regroup, Intel?

Corporations Want It All

2010-12-19T12:20:00.000-08:00

October 22nd, 2010 by Phil Mattera

Most of U.S. Big Business seems to be on a capital strike these days, refusing to invest and create new jobs. A notable exception is semiconductor giant Intel, which just announced that it will spend up to $8 billion upgrading its chip fabrication plants in the United States and build a new one in Oregon.

What’s odd is that Intel CEO Paul Otellini is just as critical of American economic policies, especially those promoted by the Obama Administration, as many other companies that use that vote of no confidence to justify their redlining of the USA. One of Otellini’s main gripes is that the United States provides too little in the way of tax breaks and other incentives to corporations compared to other countries. Speaking at a recent event at the Council on Foreign Relations, he proposed “that we take a page from others’ playbooks and provide attractive incentives for companies to build factories here that will employ our workers.”

This is a truly bizarre comment from the head of company that has received more in economic development subsidies than just about any other corporation in the United States. Over the past two decades, taxpayers in states such as New Mexico, Arizona and Oregon have underwritten the company’s rise to its dominant position in the semiconductor market.

New Mexico. The process began in 1993, when Intel announced plans for what was then an unprecedented $1 billion investment in a new chip plant, to be built in a suburb of Albuquerque called Rio Rancho. The company pressured local officials to provide what would ultimately amount to about $455 million in property tax abatements and sales tax exemptions on the equipment purchased for the facility.

Arizona. Soon after getting its way in New Mexico, Intel put the squeeze on officials in Arizona, where it proposed to build another plant in Chandler, a suburb of Phoenix. The company received some $82 million in property tax abatements, sales tax exemptions and corporate income tax credits. In 2005 Intel strong-armed the state to change the method by which it calculates corporate taxes to a system known as single sales factor, which allowed Intel and other companies with lots of property and a big payroll but relatively low sales in the state to enjoy enormous tax reductions.

Oregon. In 1999 Intel announced plans for a large expansion of its semiconductor operations in Oregon but made it clear that the investment was contingent on receiving a huge property tax abatement. Actually, what Intel was demanding was an extension of tax breaks it previously received in the state, where its manufacturing operations dated back to 1974. Those breaks were enabled by the state’s Strategic Investment Program (SIP), which was adopted in 1993 with Intel in mind. The company’s new SIP deal reduced Intel’s property tax bill by an estimated $200 million over 15 years. In 2005 Intel got the county to extend the property tax break to 2025, locking in an estimated $579 million in additional savings. In addition to these property tax breaks, Intel enjoyed a substantial reduction in corporate income taxes thanks to Oregon’s decision to join the single sales factor bandwagon.

So what is Otellini complaining about? Perhaps his real gripe is that the Federal Trade Commission sued Intel last December, charging that the company “illegally used its dominant market position for a decade to stifle competition and strengthen its monopoly.” The parties settled the case in August, with Intel agreeing to end some of the pressure tactics it applies to computer makers.

Yet it is likely that Otellini’s comments reflect a broader attitude on the part of Big Business. The Supreme Court ruling in the Citizens United case and the resulting flood of corporate money into the current electoral campaigns appear to have given CEOs like Otellini the idea that they are entitled – entitled to buy elections and entitled to have government policy oriented to their serve their every need. The way things are going, those corporate titans may get their wish.

Very Big News - Intel Busted

2010-11-10T14:18:00.000-08:00

How Intel Escaped Rules for Major Air Polluters
Written by Jeff Radford
Corrales Comment
Tuesday, 09 November 2010
Second in a series

The air pollution permit that Intel fought so hard to get during the late 1990s has now been determined inadequate by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

A lengthy report based on the EPA’s December 2009 surprise in-depth inspection at the Intel factories above Corrales not only found ongoing, systemic under-reporting of emissions of dangerous chemicals, but questioned the very legitimacy of the pollution permit which Intel insisted it be given ten years ago.

Many of the chemical emissions coming from Intel’s stacks are classified as hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) by the federal government while others are classified as toxic air pollutants (TAPs) regulated by state government.

The permit written for Intel by the Air Quality Bureau of the N.M. Environment Department (NMED) allows Intel’s operations here to release to the air more than 80 chemicals listed as hazardous air pollutants, up to a combined total of 24 tons a year.
As counter-intuitive as it might seem, the permit approval process includes no attempt to determine whether breathing that much HAP-contaminated air is safe. Not even if Intel accidentally releases all 24 tons in a few minutes.

That lack of short-term limits on what Intel can release to the air is a big part of the EPA’s concern over the microchip making operations here. It also leads to the central question: whether it was a mistake to agree to Intel’s insistence that it be regulated as a minor source of air pollution.

The National Enforcement Investigations Center (NEIC) team that participated in the December inspection studied Intel’s permit to determine whether conditions in Intel’s permit are “federally and practically enforceable” as required.

NEIC found that, “The potential to emit of HAPs is not practically limited by Intel’s permit.” That finding was cited as one of 15 areas of concern in the report.

Discussions between the Air Quality Bureau and Intel have been under way since the December inspection on how the Intel air permit should be changed.

Bureau Chief Mary Uhl said October 26, “We are only beginning to discuss changes to the Intel air quality permit. I believe it will take several months to resolve and address the areas of concern with Intel and EPA.”

In a mass-mailing addressed to “Dear Neighbors” at the end of October, Intel’s director of corporate affairs, Jami Grindatto, did not mention the underlying inadequacy of the NMED pollution permit, but focused on technical “miscalculations” of emissions, pollution abatement equipment efficiency and “parametric monitoring.”

Grindatto noted that, “The report lists one area of non-compliance related to a miscalculation of emissions for three chemicals: ethyl lactate, methanol and xylene. The actual emissions related to this error are minimal (less than 0.2 percent of our annual limit) and present no health risks to the community.”

He promised, “Intel is committed to working with the EPA and the NMED over the next six months to find cooperative solutions to address these areas of concern, including additional testing of our abatement systems.”

In fact, the EPA and NEIC teams repeatedly faulted Intel’s data which “may not be valid for use in calculating Hazardous Air Pollutant emissions.”

Intel’s critics, including nearby downwind neighbors who blame Intel’s pollution for recurring ailments, say the EPA-NEIC report vindicates their charges over the past 17 years.

The citizens group Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water (CRCAW) has always distrusted Intel’s use of emissions factors to report its toxic emissions, insisting that releases to the air be continuously monitored and measured rather than calculated using what they regard as phony, unverifiable multipliers.

Steve Martinez, a CRCAW member and professional data analyst, made that point when he reviewed the EPA report last month. “During their brief investigation last December, the EPA readily found two emission factors that were in error.
“If two emission factors were easily found to be erroneous in such a short period of time, one has to wonder how many of the dozens of other emission factors are also in error?

“And what is the true impact of all of the potentially erroneous emission factors on the total pollution volume emitted by Intel?”
“This report by the EPA goes a long way toward exonerating affected residents and concerned citizens that have tried in vain for years to get Intel to care as much about the air we breathe as the profits they make from one of the largest chip manufacturing plants in the world,” said Martinez who several years ago relocated his family from their home near the Intel plant.

In an October 18 statement from CRCAW, the group noted that, “The report found multiple deficiencies in Intel’s operations relating to public health.

“The most shocking finding confirms what CRCAW has long claimed, that Intel’s minor source air permit is a sham and needs to be replaced. ‘Sham permit’ is an official EPA term for a permit that is essentially unenforceable.”

The now-retired Air Quality Bureau staffer who worked on Intel’s pollution permit more than five years, Jim Shively, recalled his frustration in trying to set regulations that would really restrict Intel’s release of chemicals that could violate ambient air standards and cause harm.

Reached by phone October 27, Shively said he had read the main sections of the EPA report and found its recommendations very similar to what he had tried unsuccessfully to write into Intel’s permit in the late 1990s.

“It would take pretty much what we were trying to do back in 2000 to meet what the EPA is asking for,” Shively concluded. “But I don’t see that happening.”

Based on his difficult experience, he thinks state regulators are unlikely to impose emissions controls Intel seriously dislikes.
“If the EPA really got behind it, maybe, but I don’t see NMED forcing Intel to operate as EPA is recommending,” the former Air Quality Bureau permit supervisor said.

Shively recalled that Intel was constantly critical of the bureau in the late 1990s for taking so long to grant the company’s “minor source” air pollution permit. “Actually we were pretty quick about getting the permit out. They said it took them four or five years to get the permit, but in reality that was their own doing. They kept coming back and coming back to us to get it the way they wanted it.

“Where I ran into trouble with the department was that I wasn’t conceding on things they wanted. In the end, I didn’t wind up writing the permit, and Intel finally got the permit they wanted.”

That permit is now the one that EPA has found inappropriate because it does not practically limit Intel’s potential to emit air pollutants.

Shively recalled he released a draft permit for public review in 1998 which contained much of what the EPA now says is required. It was the subject of a public meeting that fall, but when Intel officials objected, political pressure was brought to bear and the draft permit was yanked back.

“The problem was that Intel had a lot of objections to it, and insisted that it be withdrawn,” Shively remembered.

The permit Intel finally got after it was taken away from Shively and given to a more compliant regulator is really a “sham permit,” Shively contended.

“The term ‘sham permit; is actually a term used by the EPA to describe a permit that is impractical and unenforceable.” And Intel’s permit is unenforceable, Shively explained, “because it all comes down to these calculations to determine emission rates. These calculations are based on ‘emissions factors’ that Intel provides. We could never could figure out where these numbers came from.

“It is reliance on these emission factors that I think is just out of whack,” the veteran air quality specialist concluded. “It’d hard to have much confidence in the reported emissions numbers if you can’t verify it. My position was that those emissions factors were unreliable.

“First and foremost, the permit needs to be re-done,” Shively said shortly after he retired and could be interviewed by Corrales Comment. He said then that NMED officials lacked the courage to take on Intel given its political clout.

“In my gut, I think they know this permit is not right and needs to be re-opened. But I don’t think they want to go there. To re-open this permit is not a safe thing for them to do. There’s a risk involved [for NMED officials]. This is a large, influential corporation and there’s a risk involved if you mess with them.”

Two other former Air Quality Bureau staffers, including a former chief of the enforcement section, publicly supported Shively’s criticism of the Intel permit back in 2004. According to former permit enforcement manager Debby Brinkerhoff, 80 percent of the bureau’s staffers supported Shively’s position. She was involved in an aborted enforcement action against Intel in 1994 when stack tests revealed excessive acid gas emissions.

“We were never allowed to issue a notice of violations,” Brinkerhoff said. (See Corrales Comment Vol.XXII, No. 24, February 7, 2004 “Two More Pollution Regulators Blast Intel ‘Sham’ Air Permit”)

Finally, six years later, those political considerations shifted when the EPA notified Intel in February 2010 —just weeks after the Obama administration replaced the Bush team as head of the federal government’s executive branch— that it had been targeted for an air quality compliance investigation.

Shortly after she learned that EPA had targeted Intel’s operations here, the current bureau’s chief, Mary Uhl, told Corrales Comment the crackdown would likely lead to tighter regulations as a major source of air pollution, possibly with short-term limits on toxic emissions instead of calculated yearly averages.

“The over-arching thing that EPA was interested in —and I think Intel would agree with this— is whether it is a major source or a minor source,” Uhl concluded. “It was readily apparent that was the concern.”

Prospects that Intel might concede to regulation as a major source of air pollution were discussed at the October 20 meeting of Intel’s Community Environmental Working Group (CEWG).

Intel’s Frank Gallegos said the chipmaker did not fully agree with EPA that its operations warranted regulation as a major source. “Intel feels they have sufficient data to demonstrate that they are a minor source and we are under the 100-ton threshold. We feel comfortable that we do meet ‘minor source’ status.”

Gallegos said another “area of concern” cited by EPA regarded the need for short-term emissions limits. “Intel is not aware of any regulatory requirement for short-term limits on volatile organic compounds or HAPs.”

CRCAW co-founder Barbara Rockwell (who moved to Placitas to escape Intel’s fumes) attended the October 20 CEWG meeting and asked when Intel is going to agree to short-term limits on its emissions. “Back in 1993-94 when CRCAW signed a settlement agreement with Intel, it called for hourly limits on emissions. That lasted just a few years and was quickly abandoned in favor of this minor source permit,” she pointed out.

Rockwell’s 2005 book, Boiling Frogs: Intel versus the Village, documents downwind residents’ long struggles against Intel pollution.

“When Jim Shively left NMED, he said the minor source permit was a ‘sham permit’ and the process that produced it was a farce,” Rockwell continued. “Now we have the EPA, all these years later, confirming that statement by Jim Shively who was a highly respected permit writer for NMED.

“So now I want to know when Intel is going to move forward with a major source permit which they should have had all along?”
Gallegos replied he couldn’t say when it would happen due to “green house” gas regulations.
She sought assurance, asking, “But it is going to happen, right?”

“Yes, it’s going to happen,” Gallegos conceded.

A Rio Rancho member of CRCAW, Marcy Brandenburg, said she had no patience with Intel’s technical assurances that there’s no real problem. “We don’t need to be discussing how Intel is trying to do the right thing; is going to comply with EPA. We need to know what the heck have [regulators at all levels] been doing for the last 20 freaking years while these people slowly perish.”
She emphasized the unusually high incidence of pulmonary fibrosis disease reported among residents downwind from Intel. Later the same week, another of those stricken, Mary Daitz, died from the lung disease.

“We just got vindication and support for everything people have said for over 20 years. Guess what? It’s over. You need to have a major source permit. We need to take action to figure out how that’s going to happen.”

Last January, after Corrales Comment learned of the EPA inspection the previous month, Intel’s Sarah Chavez was asked what changes would be required in Intel’s operations if a “major source” permit is required.

She replied: “It would be a lot of work for us, but would it change the operation? I don’t know that I can fully answer that. The only major source permit that I’ve ever looked at that would be even somewhat close to what we might see was the Eastman Kodak permit.

“From what I recall, that permit actually had fewer conditions than our current permit.”

Chavez conceded it would probably mean more inspections, “but inspections don’t change how we operate.”

As to hourly or daily limits on toxic emissions, she said those might be imposed. She noted that Intel’s previous permit had some short-term limits, “but for very few things, though. It was only for five or six chemicals more than what we have today.”
Intel’s Thom Little suggested there may be drawbacks for the community to have Intel regulated as a major source of air pollution. “Obviously the public has a perception that having a major source permit would have a series of conditions that are beneficial. I wonder if there are things that the community wouldn’t like in a major source permit. There could be a potential down-side,” Little suggested.

Chavez added: “One of the things the community needs to look at is if Intel were a major source, we don’t have to keep our emissions under 96 tons, right?”

She referred to the condition in the current minor source permit that limits Intel’s release of volatile organic compounds to the air. “We could say, ‘We’re going to emit 200 tons,’ or whatever the number would be.”

Little added: “So it might be: ‘Be careful what you ask for.’”

Back in the late 1990s when Shively was still in charge of writing the air pollution permit for Intel, he wanted continuous emissions monitors on the factory’s stacks.

He was, after all, writing the permit for the world’s biggest microchip manufacturing plant —which was about to get much bigger.

It was also a time when semiconductor manufacturers were exposed nationally as not being the “clean” industry the public had been led to believe they were. USA Today carried a three-part series on that topic with an article entitled “Dirty Secrets of the Chip Making Industry“ in its January 13, 1998 edition.

And medical researchers were finding that the kinds of industrial chemicals emitted from plants like Intel were prime suspects in human endocrine system disorders, among other medical problems. Further cautions were being raised that air borne mixtures of several such chemicals could greatly magnify toxicity levels.

Shively, chief of the bureau’s air quality permitting section, was also aware that Corrales residents, especially those living near the Intel plant, had been complaining for more than five years about illnesses they experienced when industrial fumes invaded their homes.

In the mid-1990s, as it had done in the past, Intel essentially wrote up the permit conditions they wanted and sent them to the Air Quality Bureau to be dressed up in the agency’s format for approval.

But Shively balked.

From 1994 to 1999, through a series of negotiations, arm-twistings and permit application revisions, Shively’s team and Intel officials wrestled to come up with provisions that would allow Intel the operational flexibility it wanted yet establish meaningful controls over what the microchip facility was allowed to emit.

As the years dragged out, political pressure on Shively grew intense. “Intel is making my life hell,” Shively confided back then.
Inspection of the Air Quality Bureau’s administrative record on the Intel permit application revealed numerous Shively memos-to-the-file which explain several of his major concerns about giving Intel the “flexible” permit it sought.

• lack of enforceability, since compliance with permit conditions could not be determined easily or convincingly;
• reliance on unverifiable “emissions factors” supplied by Intel to calculate, rather than actually measure, what was coming out of Intel’s stacks;
• reliability of pollution control equipment manufacturer’s efficiency ratings, and their use to determine permit compliance;
• use of a hypothetical “bubble concept,” or imaginary containment dome over the entire Intel plant so that emissions from each stack are regulated as though they all combine into one imaginary point of release instead of coming from individual stacks; and
• inappropriate yearly averages for emissions limits, rather than hourly, daily or monthly restrictions as had been established in previous versions of Intel’s permit.

Virtually all of those misgivings that Shively detailed in his memos-to-the-file in the late 1990s have now been raised by the Dallas regional office of the EPA and the NEIC.

At the heart of many of these issues was whether Intel really qualified to be regulated as a “minor source” of air pollution as it wished to be to avoid tougher new federal regulations.

In the early to mid-1990s, Intel was emitting in excess of 140 tons per year of volatile organic compounds into the air untreated, as well as other more toxic chemicals federally classified as “hazardous air pollutants.” Shively and others in his bureau looked to federal policies and guidance on how to determine whether a pollution source like Intel qualified to be regulated as if it were a minor source of air pollution. A key determinant was the source’s “potential to emit,” and to what extent did Intel’s pollution controls mitigate that potential.

Shively’s concerns about the “bust-proof” permit Intel sought were never addressed to his satisfaction. Under intensifying political pressure, the Intel permit was effectively removed from his control; another bureau staffer, Richard Goodyear, was instructed to get the permit issued.

It was, on March 3, 2000.

Shively was prohibited by superiors in the N.M. Environment Department to speak to the media about his concerns with the air pollution permit Intel finally received.

When Shively retired in 2004, he wrote a letter to the Environment Department secretary, Ron Curry, detailing why the Intel permit is inappropriate.

Shively’s January 5, 2004 letter to Secretary Curry criticized the Environment Department for caving in to Intel’s pressures. “This permit, like many others, was granted due to pressure from the permittee, but worse than that, by an inappropriate desire internally to accommodate them to any extent possible. These actions reflect poorly on the entire bureau, and as a result, it has become severely compromised and lacks integrity and credibility.”

The former chief permit writer concluded his letter by urging Secretary Curry to re-open Intel’s air permit. “The department needs to rescind and re-issue the permit and conduct the review appropriately and in such a way that people know what is done, how it’s done and why it’s done.”

Shively’s letter to Curry was apparently triggered by requests by Corrales Comment to interview him for a series of articles on the Intel permit. In the opening paragraph, Shively wrote, “This letter is a follow-up to a meeting I had with [NMED Division Director] Jim Norton and [NMED public affairs director] Jon Goldstein on October 24, 2003 regarding the Intel air quality permit and Air Quality Bureau problems in general.

“This meeting was prompted by a reporter’s request for an interview with me prior to my retirement on December 31, 2003. The reporter made the request because I was a program manager of the New Source Review permitting unit of the Air Quality Bureau from June 1994 until March 2001.

“The reporter was denied the interview, and I requested the meeting with Jim Norton to at least inform him of how I expected the interview to go.”

Corrales Comment filed a Freedom of Information Act request with NMED in October, 2003 to be allowed to interview Shively. NMED officials continued to thwart access to Shively until his retirement.

Shively referred to EPA guidance in his letter to Curry to explain what constitutes a “sham permit.” That document was issued by the EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and its Office of Enforcement and Compliance Monitoring, and is entitled “Guidance on Limiting Potential to Emit in New Source Permitting.”

That guidance memo is also reproduced in full in the EPA-NEIC report released last month.

The memo and a related EPA document explain that air pollution permit writers must guard against “sham permits” for big industrial operations (like the Intel facility above Corrales) which seek to be regulated as a minor source of pollution.
Intel’s Permit No. 325-M9 (modification number 9) is, in fact, a permit to be regulated as a “synthetic minor source.”
A crucial consideration is the facility’s over-all “potential to emit;” how much toxic material could be released? Emissions potential from the Intel Rio Rancho plant is enormous.

The federal guidance also makes it clear that the permit can avoid becoming a “sham” only if it contains sufficient requirements to be federally enforceable.

The bureau’s Intel permit file in Santa Fe contained more references to concerns by Shively and others that the permit modification Intel sought amounted to a “sham permit.”

A November 9, 1994 memo written by Intel’s Sarah Chavez, stated the situation clearly. “NMED is concerned that this does not become a sham permit, and that emissions are verifiable, and that they be able to determine compliance in a timely manner.”
Those are precisely the concerns stated in Shively’s January 5, 2004 letter to NMED Secretary Curry.

Chavez’s memo continues: “Intel clarified that they will keep verifiable records and will determine emissions for each of the fuel firing units on a monthly basis. Intel will also keep a rolling annual average to ensure that they do not exceed the ton-per-year limits, and that they remain a minor source.”

The Chavez memo stated that NMED officials [Shively among them] were similarly concerned that conditions in the permit for limitations on federally classified “hazardous air pollutants” and State listed “toxic air pollutants” also would constitute a “sham.”
When Shively was in charge of writing the permit for Intel, he fought to require Intel to install continuous emissions monitoring equipment, so that NMED compliance officers would know at all times what level of emissions were coming from the facility. He also fought against Intel’s insistence on permit conditions that set yearly averages, rather than hourly or daily, emissions limits.
A draft version of Permit No. 325-M9 produced by Shively called for continuous emissions monitoring and other safeguards. When it was released for public review August 20, 1998, it was roundly supported by residents and citizens’ groups but strenuously opposed by Intel.

That 1998 draft was quickly withdrawn and the more “flexible” permit Intel sought, without short-term emissions limits, without verifiable emissions factors and without continuous emissions monitoring, was approved in March 2000.

The permit which NMED approved was challenged by Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), the N.M. Environmental Law Center and Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water (CRCAW).

For their appeal to the N.M. Environmental Improvement Board, the citizens’ groups called in a California-based air pollution specialist, Jim Tarr, for expert testimony.

“I have been in this business a long time, and I get around the United States from time to time on these issues,” said Tarr, president of Stone Lions Environmental Corporation. “I work with a lot of state and local agencies.

“From what I see here, the regulatory effort by the State of New Mexico really stands out in my mind. It’s the worst I’ve ever come in contact with.

“By that I mean, in this particular case, the Environment Department has clearly abdicated its responsibility which is to protect the people who live around this facility.”

(See Corrales Comment Vol. XVII, No. 16, October 10, 1998, “‘Air Regulators Worst I’ve Seen,’ Consultant Says.”)

But after refusing to consider technical testimony by CRCAW’s retired Los Alamos chemist Fred Marsh, and retired Sandia Labs physicist Alan Beattie, the Environmental Improvement Board, composed of political appointees, upheld the March 2000 permit for Intel.

At his January 19, 2004 news conference in Corrales after his retirement, Shively further explained his concerns about the permit finally issued.

One of the flaws in the kind of “minor source” permit Intel has, he said, is that it does not set lower emissions limits for chemicals that are more hazardous than others. Intel’s permit treats all hazardous chemicals equally, allowing release of up to 10 tons per year of even the most dangerous toxins —without any assessment of the health consequences of such releases.
CRCAW’s Fred Marsh, who attended Shively’s 2004 news conference, explained the problem this way. “They could release the annual allowable limit in one day or one hour and they would not violate the permit.

“For instance, Intel is allowed to release 5.9 tons of phosgene in 12 months time.” He noted that phosgene is an extremely deadly toxin used in chemical warfare. “They could release that 5.9 tons in a day or an hour and it would kill thousands and thousands of people. Intel could say, ‘We didn’t violate our permit,’ and that would be true.”

Without continuous emissions monitoring, depending on calculations using emissions factors rather than actual measurements, Shively said, it is difficult to know for sure how much of which kinds of toxins are coming out of Intel’s stacks at any given time.
Shively’s draft of the Intel permit which called for continuous emissions monitoring was withdrawn “because Intel didn’t want it.’
Cost of such a system may have been a deterrent, he admitted. “It wouldn’t have been cheap, but the accountability would have been there.”

Asked if he thought accountability was something Intel didn’t want, Shively replied, “Yeah.”

© Corrales Comment, 2010, All Rights Reserved.

EPA Holds Intel Accountable

2010-10-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

The following are comments from retired Los Alamos Labs chemist Fred Marsh on the recently-released 727-page EPA report on an 'unscheduled' inspection of the Intel Rio Rancho facility. It remains to be seen what action the New Mexico Environment Department will take. We have been demanding the replacement of Intel's sham permit for years with a major source permit.

"EPA is finally holding Intel and the New Mexico Environment Department accountable for decades of releasing poisons into the air nearby residents must breathe. A few examples from the NEIC/EPA report:

page 12. Intel's calculated release of ethyl lactate understated the actual release by 36%.

page 13. "Intel uses the same scrubber efficiency for all scrubbers, although they have different chemical loadings."

page page 14. "NEIC could not reproduce the data Intel used in its 2005 permit revision for scrubber efficiency."

page 16. "lack of correlation between inlet and outlet concentrations for hydrogen fluoride"

page 21. "Intel's use of high removal efficiency [for scrubbers] may not accurately account for total HAP emissions."

page 22. "no stack tests have been performed to determine if [sodium hydroxide] addition has any effect on scrubber removal efficiency."

page 24. "The potential to emit of HAPS is not practically limited by Intel's permit."

page 24. "Without an accurate test of operational units in the permit, it is unclear what units are subject to permit limits and requirements."

page 25. "NMED has set emission limits in the permit that cannot be exceeded by Intel under any circumstances." (Fred's comment: This shocking finding alone confirms what we have long claimed, and justifies replacing what Jim Shively called Intel's bust-proof permit.)

page 25. "Without short-term limits, Intel can have spikes in its emission profile that can lead to acute exposures of these chemicals." Fred's comment: This also confirms what we have been saying for the past two decades. I addressed spikes directly in my July 2000 EIB hearing testimony, which Barbara Rockwell included in "Boiling Frogs."

My EIB testimony on this subject was:

"The rate at which toxic pollutants are released also has a major role in their risk to public health. I'll demonstrate with an example involving hydrogen cyanide, which is used in gas chamber executions. According to the Chemical Warfare Commission, 300 milligrams of hydrogen cyanide per cubic meter is immediately lethal. However, the NIOSH toxicity data allow workers to be exposed to a 60-fold lower concentration of hydrogen cyanide for a 10-hour workday.

"This means that although an exposure to a 300-mg level for 10 minutes would kill you, an exposure to a 60-fold lower concentration for 60 times as long would have no adverse effects. The total exposures to cyanide are the same in these two cases; however, a short exposure to high concentrations is lethal, whereas a 60-times longer exposure at a lower concentration is not.

"This illustrates why high-concentration spikes are especially hazardous. Yet, Intel is not required by the revised [minor-source] permit to report such high-concentration spike releases. In fact, if you wanted to hide such high-concentration releases, the most effective means would be to use a long-term average -- such as the 12-month rolling average allowed by Intel's revised permit."

More on the Latest Tragedy

2010-06-09T13:52:00.000-07:00

This a message from Rosemary Keefe, who was recently diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis:

Because Intel has provided intermittent and summary reports (self-regulated) of toxic wastes, none of us living in the shadow of Intel will ever know what we inhaled.

Were we unlucky one day when clouds or rainbows over the Sandias drew us out to feel a cool breeze on our skin, to take a robust power walk up the hill or work in our garden?

Was that the fatal moment when the scrubbers were being cleaned or a leak occurred or the heat in the stacks was too high or too low to destroy the worst pollution? Was it a day of accelerated productivity, when Intel won awards for speeding up operations, for taking risks with new toxic chemicals?

Was it then that we took a deep breath of killing daggers into our most delicate and essential living tissues and destroyed them forever?

How can we know the day and time when the killing began? Does anyone at Intel care?

All of Intel's graphs and numbers showing EPA or NMED compliance can't answer these questions. And I don't expect a reply.

Compared to Intel's giant profits those of who live downwind are simply "collateral damage" in Intel's race to the top.

All of this has been said before by many of you and in Barbara Rockwell's Boiling Frogs.

Another Tragic Story Brought to You by Intel Rio Rancho

2010-06-08T18:44:00.000-07:00

This is taken from an email to Fred Marsh from a retired English professor who moved to Corrales in 2006 and settled below the Intel plant in Rio Rancho:. She is the latest victim of pulmonary fibrosis, a relatively rare disease that has already claimed the lives of five locals.

First, how advanced is my pulmonary fibrosis? Could my lungs have gone from being healthy, as I believe they were when I moved here, to severe interstitial damage in 30 months of heavy breathing huffing up the hill toward Intel at high pollution times?

Second, what kind of air conditioning and air filtration system is safe enough to filter out silica and other Intel pollution and cost effective to put in my home if I'm selling it in six months or in six years?

As I've promised to some of you, I will talk with Peter Kowalski at ATSDR when I have a definitive diagnosis after my lung biopsy. Then I will write and speak widely about the cause of my lung damage in various media. I know that others before me have told similar stories, but maybe the time is ripe for hearing.

Here's my brief story for those on this distribution list who haven't heard it: My partner and I moved to Corrales in July 2006. I was on sabbatical from the Univ of Wisconsin where I was Professor of English and Dean of Faculty. We bought a spacious home with a gorgeous view of the Sandias--so gorgeous that I never looked at the monster spewing toxic particles and gas behind us. I've been blessed with robust health and have a habit of taking a vigorous daily walks--up and across the hill directly under INTEL or down across Loma Larga along Applewood to Corrales Rd. From July 2007 to the end of that year I was partly out of the country --in Australia giving lectures and then teaching fall 2007 in Scotland for Univ of Wis as my final service before retiring in Jan 2008. Early in 2008 I developed a dry cough that wouldn't go away. It felt like a chemical irritation in the back of my throat. I believed then INTEL pollution was causing it, but I counted on my general good health to ward off a throat irritation.

Now about two and a half years later, I've been diagnosed (from chest X-rays and a CT scan in April 2010) with pulmonary fibrosis. I'd never heard of it. Initially the doctor thought the cough was caused by asthma, which I'd never had. A lung biopsy will give the definitive diagnosis.

Not everyone breathing INTEL toxic waste develops a respiratory illness. Perhaps my lungs were more sensitive. I've been breathing freely all over the world for 70 years.

I am convinced that INTEL is responsible for my current lung damage--whatever it is. My quality of life has already been diminished--not to mention my self-image as a spontaneous person who grabs a last minute cheap flight to a distant destination (can't do that on oxygen). I've had to discontinue much of my work as a lecturer and performer because of shortness of breath and my dependency on oxygen. I've attached my program for my one-woman show for NM Humanities Council "living history" Chautauqua series, in case you'd like to hire me while I'm still breathing. Some of you on this list may have seen me perform recently for Compadres de Corrales, Meadowlark Senior Center, or Spanish Colonial Arts Society in Santa Fe. I've agreed to perform in a solo fest in Albuquerque in July--if I can breathe.

Meanwhile, consider me an advocate for clean air in Corrales. I must, however, give my immediate energy to my creative work as writer, and so I rely on others still deeply breathing to carry on the fight for social justice.

Rosemary Keefe, PhD

Intel's Silica Emissions

2010-05-20T17:32:00.000-07:00

Following is are emails sent to Stephen Littlejohn of Intel's Community Environmental Working Group (CEWG) from Fred Marsh of Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water. At issue is whether Intel's silica emissions are crystalline silica which can cause deadly lung disease, or amorphous silica which is relatively benign. Please note that five local residents have contracted pulmonary fibrosis which can be caused by crystalline silica and three have died of it. Based on the national rate for this rare disease, only one case would be expected for the population of Corrales. Thus, the rate of this deadly disease is five times higher for Intel neighbors than it is for those who live elsewhere.

Stephen,

I have reviewed the silica analysis information Ms. Chavez claims was done in 2004 and presented to the CEWG in 2005.

As a former analytical chemist, I find her submission to be very selective and incomplete. None of the usual detailed analytical report information is included.

The "accredited third party laboratories" are not identified. No details are provided to ensure that representative samples of airborne silica were collected.

It claims less than 1% crystalline silica for five different samples, but nowhere does it reveal the amount of silica collected for any of the five samples.

I find it surprising that Intel chose not to share this information with the Task Force. I also am surprised that the alleged presentation to the CEWG was not recalled and brought to our attention by any of the CEWG members, or by any other regular meeting attendees.

It is even more surprising that Ms. Chavez waited so long to share these incomplete analytical results. Perhaps this is a case of what psychologists call "recovered suppressed memory."

What I wrote earlier remains completely true. Intel DID NOT share its alleged 2004 silica results with me or any other Task Force member. The long delay before Intel publicized what they should have been eager to report as favorable results is difficult to understand.

What I wrote (excerpted below) is still accurate. We have no reason to trust Intel, but many reasons (some listed below) to distrust them.

Fred Marsh

* * * * * *
Stephen Littlejohn
CEWG Facilitator

The second paragraph in your "Brief History of Concerns" states that Intel collected and analyzed airborne silica samples in 2004.

If they did so, they kept it a secret from me and from other Task Force members. Yet, even if airborne silica was actually measured, Intel's insider knowledge would have allowed them to collect samples during periods when HDMS releases were especially low.

NMED earlier cited Intel for systematically excluding RTO downtimes from the infrequent actual stack measurements required by their permit. So Intel has already been cited for a similar type of cheating.

Moreover, Intel whistle-blowers have told us that Intel subcontractors who report high values are often required to repeat their measurements until they report "acceptable" values.

In the absence of external oversight, or even awareness, Intel's claimed silica results must be viewed with suspicion.

Thus, Intel's 2004 silica measurement claim may be similar to the phony emission factors Intel used to calculate and report zero release of carcinogenic carbon tetrachloride in the 4th quarter of 2003, even when 1.4 tons had actually been measured.

Fred Marsh
Corrales Residents for Clean Air & Water

Intel Responds - Thanks to Whistleblowers

2010-04-02T12:17:00.002-07:00

CORRALES COMMENT VOL. XXIX, No. 2 March 6, 2010
PRODDING INTEL TO CUT POLLUTION BRINGS POSITIVE RESULTS
Written by Jeff Radford
Fourth and final in a series

Since the politically messy blow-up of the Corrales Air Toxics Study in early summer 2004, Intel has:
• replaced the troublesome incinerators that are supposed to burn off tons of industrial solvents;
• installed back-up units to capture and burn those volatile organic compounds (VOCs) when incinerators fail or shut down for maintenance;
• raised the height of the “smoke” stacks substantially to better disperse pollution plumes and decrease the likelihood that wind patterns will send fumes roiling into nearby neighborhoods;
• improved the efficiency of the water-spray scrubbers that remove acid gases before production line fumes are released to the air;
• substituted a better, tightly-controlled method for adding bacteria-killing chemicals to the massive cooling towers so that larger amounts of hazardous bromoform don’t cause airway breathing spasms in nearby homeowners or passersby;
• eliminated cyanide compounds used in the manufacturing process and dismantled the cyanide destruction unit suspected by an Intel whistleblower of causing illnesses;
• reduced the use of the “hazardous air pollutant” (HAP) hexafluoroethane, suspected as a leading culprit for sicknesses reported by nearby residents;
• eliminated the chemical hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) which, when incinerated, produces a fine silica dust suspected of causing lung fibrosis; and
• agreed to fund an independent, citizen-controlled testing of silica dust released to the air when HMDS is burned in the incinerators to find out whether the fine particles are the dangerous sharp-edged crystalline kind or the more innocuous amorphous silica.

SUSPECT INTEL CHEMICALS ELIMINATED, REDUCED
Those changes to Intel’s operations here were not demanded by regulators in the N.M. Air Quality Bureau —in fact, the agency cannot impose such requirements on Intel.
And the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which delegates regulatory authority to the state bureau, may have relatively little leverage with which to force Intel to better control its chemical emissions.
While EPA initiated an enforcement action against Intel a year ago and staged a thorough inspection of the Intel facilities here last December, a serious crack-down on operations at the microchip factory next door may not happen.
That’s because essentially no health-based air quality standards have been set for most of the toxic chemicals Intel and other industries use, even though many are lethal in small doses.
Regulations on release of these chemicals to the air citizens breathe cannot be enforced because, for the most part, there are no regulations.
The writing of regulations for HAPs that would implement the 1963 federal Clean Air Act and amendments in 1970, ’77 and ’90 has mostly not been accomplished for technical, and largely political, reasons.
Ambient air quality standards exist for just six air pollutants for which criteria have been set: carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxides, nitrogen oxides, lead, ground-level ozone and particulate matter.
As Air Quality Bureau Chief Mary Uhl explained, “We do have the authority to say ‘This facility is exceeding national health-base standards for one of the criteria air pollutants,’ but the toxics are not included in that.
“There are no criteria for those toxic chemicals.”

If there are no federal or state limits on how much toxic chemicals Intel or any other factory can dump into the air we breathe, is there no way to limit exposures downwind residents must endure?
Yes, there is, if Intel voluntarily discovers and adopts those ways.
And those anti-pollution measures may even be written into Intel’s State-issued permit —but only if Intel agrees.
Policies set at the Intel corporate level call for ongoing reductions in usage of toxic chemicals, and that does happen to some extent.
However, when a non-toxic microchip making process was invented by a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratories in the late 1990s, Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water (CRCAW) urged Intel to switch to that new process using super-critical carbon dioxide and far less water.
Intel showed little interest in the new process; the massive re-tooling of the facilities here in 2008-09 did not incorporate that innovation.
In the course of implementing the corporation’s chosen new manufacturing technology, Intel added three new HAPs for which it must track usage and eliminated five others. Its State air pollution permit includes more than 40 HAPs, including cyanide and other highly poisonous substances such as hydrogen fluoride.
The facility here can release to the air up to nine tons a year of any of those toxic chemicals and a total of 29 tons a year for all HAPs combined. The permit allows Intel to release many other State-listed “toxic air pollutants” (TAPs) and up to 96.5 tons a year of volatile organic compounds.
Citizens affected by Intel’s air pollution have argued for more than a decade that short-term limits should be set for how much of those chemicals can be released. Critics have pointed out that Intel could release so much of a toxic chemical within five minutes that it killed everyone in a half-mile radius and still not have exceeded the annual limit set in the permit.
Now there’s hope change may be coming.
Air Quality Bureau Chief Uhl said EPA officials investigating Intel’s compliance with the Clean Air Act are focused on the adequacy of that permit and whether short-term limits should be set.
“The over-arching issue —and I think Intel would agree with this— is whether this is a ‘major source’ or a ‘minor source’” of air pollution, Uhl recalled. “That was readily apparent,” from her discussions with EPA.
If EPA determines that the bureau’s permit for Intel should be withdrawn and re-issued with regulations suitable for a major polluter, the new permit may, or may not, set hourly, daily or monthly emissions limits, Uhl cautioned.
EPA’s report on its December investigation at Intel-Rio Rancho is to be released this summer. A separate “community health consultation” initiated in 2004 by a citizen’s petition to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is also expected this summer.
Whatever regulatory changes may lie ahead, it seems clear that, absent comprehensive federal standards for most of Intel’s industrial chemicals, improvements to air quality for Intel downwinders will depend on the chipmaker’s voluntary corrections and improvements.

INTEL POLLUTION CONTROL IMPROVEMENTS CITED
A citizen involvement process to nudge that along has been functioning since August 2004 when Intel set up a Community Environmental Working Group (CEWG) in the aftermath of the inconclusive, disappointing 2002-04 Corrales Air Toxics Study.
The Intel-funded committee includes long-time members of New Mexicans for Clean Air and Water and is chaired by that group’s John Bartlit.
CRCAW’s Roberta King and Lynne Kinis have regularly attended CEWG monthly meetings as “members of the public” rather than committee members to avoid lending legitimacy to what they regard as an Intel public relations effort.
Bartlit insists CEWG has produced solid improvements, including most of those listed at the beginning of this article.
Some, perhaps much, of that improvement might be credited to the decades of demands by CRCAW members as well as to Uhl’s leadership on the Corrales Air Toxics Study, and even more to the charges made by Intel whistleblowers George Evans and Chris Grosbeck. (See Corrales Comment Vol.XXII, No.10, July 5, 2003 “Second Intel Whistleblower Goes Public”)
“Government agencies can do only what they have legal authority to do,” Bartlit pointed out. “They have to follow established procedures for adopting and enforcing rules, which involve prescribed scientific methods and legal steps. The end result is a sizeable and unavoidable time-lag in acquiring adequate data on the effects of pollutants on urban populations, using the methods of science.
“There is a further sizeable and unavoidable time-lag in formulating these data into specific regulations and restrictions on any given industry.”
Decades can pass before collected data and analysis turn into regulations, he explained. And in the fast-paced semiconductor industry, technologies and chemical compounds applied will likely always be years ahead of regulations.
“Therefore, the CEWG applies its experience to reduce emissions more swiftly by other means,” Bartlit continued. “The CEWG works by probing Intel operations with Intel engineers and finding opportunities for more rapid improvements. The community-involved process has produced specific reductions in chemical emissions at Intel. The approach is the same one used to make better computers or better anything —continuous improvement.”
Bartlit listed seven specific improvements at Intel he feels were achieved by CEWG’s collaboration.
“None of the changes made could be required by state or federal regulators. Worthwhile changes have achieved the following:
• eliminated most of the unabated emissions during scheduled maintenance of pollution controls by shortening the time the controls are off for routine maintenance;
• reduced the total emissions of biocides from cooling towers, by installing controls that add smaller amounts of biocide to cooling water as needed;
• reduced the amount of isopropyl alcohol that is used at the plant and emitted to the air;
• added certain redundant (back up) pollution controls to reduce unabated emissions while work is done on controls;
• raised the heights of stacks that emit pollutants (height was increased by about seven meters, roughly half the CEWG’s recommended increase) to reduce peak concentrations of pollutants at ground level;
• removed rain caps from stacks to reduce peak concentrations of pollutants at ground level;
• improved the operation (raised the pH, or acidity balance) of a control process to achieve better removal of 1-heptanethiol from air emissions.”
The group has given a lot of attention to establishing a “citizen protocol” for independent testing of Intel emissions due to widespread public distrust of Intel’s own test results and those produced by its consultants. For a test case, the CEWG has chosen to test Intel’s silica releases that are a byproduct of incinerating the solvent HMDS.
The temperature at which the compound is burned at Intel along with other VOCs is a near-match for that which would produce the more dangerous crystalline silica. (See Corrales Comment’s six-part series on silica and other pollutants starting in Vol.XX, No.13, August 25, 2001 “Larry Vigil Blamed Intel for Fatal Lung Disease.”)
“The N.M. Air Quality Bureau is more likely to give prompt support for the test the more strongly the community says they want the silica testing done,” Bartlit noted. “Again, we see the various pressures that help produce actions on issues.”
At CEWG’s next meeting, Wednesday, March 17, 5-7 p.m. in the Corrales Senior Center, discussion will focus on recent chemical use changes and emissions from Intel that might have led to an increase in nearby residents’ complaints as Intel’s new technology went into operation.

INTEL WHISTLEBLOWERS CREDITED FOR CHANGES
The rash of complaints last fall and this winter, some from villagers who say Intel’s pollution is now as bad as ever, leads some observers to question CEWG’s value.
As CRCAW’s Fred Marsh wrote recently, “We’re deeply indebted to three courageous Intel employees and three former N.M. Environment Department employes whose “inside Intel” information confirmed our suspicions. Most Intel changes during the past few years were encouraged by the Intel whistleblowers, although doing so cost them their jobs.
“Yet Bartlit wants credit for what these former Intel employees initiated and what CRCAW has fought for during the past two decades.
“Nearby residents have recently reported that Intel’s toxic emissions are as bad as they have ever been. Is Bartlit willing to take credit for these probably higher actual releases, or only the fictitious calculated emissions that Intel reports?
“I can justify the word ‘fictitious’ because no supporting evidence has ever been provided or requested for Intel emission factors.
“And I keep citing the example in Intel’s fourth quarter report of 2003 when 1.4 tons of carcinogenic carbon tetrachloride was actually measured, yet Intel reported their calculated zero release.”
As might be expected, Intel officials downplay any relevance to allegations made by employee whistleblowers.
Intel Environmental Health and Safety Manager Sarah Chavez was asked in an interview January 21 whether the significant changes made in equipment and operations around the Central Utility Building (CUB) were implemented as a result of problems raised by former Intel Rio Rancho industrial hygienist George Evans in 2003.
Evans charged Intel was deliberately covering up pollution problems and had ordered him to do air sampling that would be misleading. He identified the CUB and surrounding equipment, particularly the acid gas scrubbers and the cyanide destruct unit, as one source of air contamination that might be causing health problems among nearby residents.
Asked about changes around the CUB, Chavez replied, “I will tell you that the cyanide destruct system is no longer in operation. That system has been shut down; that chemical is no longer used in the process.
“We had to remove cyanide from the waste water which is why we had to have that treatment system. It’s been gone for at least a couple years now.”
And other changes at the CUB which Evans recommended have been made. “A few years ago Intel allocated $6 million to look at scrubbers and make sure they had redundancy and other improvements. The CUB scrubbers were included in that. How it related to anything alleged by George Evans, I wouldn’t know,” Chavez said.
Evans also insisted, internally and then as a whistleblower when his concerns were disregarded, that the ammonia waste stream coming to the CUB should be segregated from other chemicals to allow the pollution control systems to operate effectively.
Asked about that, Chavez replied, “There is ammonia segregation for scrubbers across the site. Whether that was directly a result of George Evan’s allegations, again, I don’t know. They’ve been doing that over time. I don’t know specifically when it was started.
“ Intel’s plan of record now is to have segregated ammonia exhaust.”
Incinerators and scrubbers are the two main air pollution control equipment at the Intel facilities. The incinerators burn off the VOCs (mostly solvents) and the acid gas scrubbers clean HAPs, TAPs and basically anything not routed to the incinerators.
But the removal efficiency of scrubbers has been poor at best. As a result of process changes, the efficiency is now much better, as Chavez explained. “Early on the mind-set was to send all the exhaust to the scrubbers. Now they’ve tried to basically remove exhaust that doesn’t have emissions, so you could have a more concentrated exhaust stream.”
And that, she explained, significantly improves the removal efficiency.
But the down-side is acid gases are more concentrated coming out of the scrubbers if the equipment fails.
Intel’s community environmental manager, Thom Little, reported at the February 17 CEWG meeting that neighborhood complaint calls had increased recently “when the pH control was lost on the scrubbers” due to a water line break.
A Washington Post news article January 4 reported that Congress is expected to write new regulations for chemicals this year to update the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act.
According to the article by Lyndsey Layton, an estimated 700 new chemical compounds are brought onto the market each year. Roughly 17,000 compounds on the market today are labeled “secret;” that is, their molecular structure is proprietary information, and not available to the public, and often not even to regulators.
Intel’s latest permit revision includes several secret chemicals that are identified only by brand name.
CRCAW’s Fred Marsh, a retired Los Alamos labs chemist, has repeatedly raised concerns about Intel’s use of chemicals for which public health standards do not exist. “For more than two decades Intel has been allowed to release multi-ton quantities of chemical compounds whose safe limits have never been determined,” he said March 1. “Even worse is that Intel releases these as mixtures whose toxicities can be increased by orders of magnitude by synergistic effects.
“In a very real sense, Intel’s neighbors have served as guinea pigs during their long exposures to these untested chemical compounds and mixtures.”
While Bartlit and others commend Intel for taking steps to address community complaints, that process may leave affected neighbors and Intel staffers alike feeling as though they’re under constant attack.
Community tensions produced by ongoing complaint-based improvements erupted at an October 27, 2005 meeting.
Intel’s director of corporate responsibility, Dave Stangis, remarked, “What you need to do is push us, so we can continue to push this envelope” of incorporating cleaner, safer technology.
The comment was resented by at least one member of the audience, Corrales’ Joy Tschawuschian. She has complained of health problems from Intel for nearly two decades.
She replied: “I don’t like the sound of having to ‘push’ Intel. I’m tired of pushing Intel. I’ve been pushing Intel since 1989. Now how much longer do I have to push Intel?
“I’m tired of pushing my windows closed on a hot summer night. I’m tired of pushing Intel.”
Intel’s Mindy Koch got the point but added, “I want to acknowledge that because of the pushing on Intel, I think it makes us better. It pushes us to do things that are better than our other sites are doing, putting in other improvements.”
Intel officials were provided a courtesy copy of this article for review and comment. Communications Manager Elizabeth Shipley responded as follows. “The CEWG was established in 2004 and is committed to making continuous environmental improvements. The CEWG membership includes representatives from the N.M. Citizens for Clean Air and Water, Intel’s Environmental Health and Safety Group and concerned citizens.
“We are pleased that this unique collaboration has produced significant improvements including voluntary upgrades to our emissions equipment. We encourage members of our community to participate in the discussion.”

Intel Responds - Thanks to Whistleblowers

2010-04-02T12:17:00.000-07:00

Arrogance is Never Wise

2010-03-11T09:58:00.000-08:00

Following is a response to an op-ed piece by Thomas Friedman in the March 3, 2010 New York Times in which Intel CEO Paul Otellini defends building a $4.5 billion plant in China because America is not generous enough with lower corporate taxes and other incentives.

“A Word from the Wise” should have been titled “A Word from the Wiseguy.” There’s nothing ‘wise’ about corporate narcissists like Intel’s Ottellini bemoaning corporate taxes and the’ lack of incentives’ as an excuse for moving their operations overseas. Everything about his comments speaks of arrogance, greed and deception. Here in New Mexico, Intel Rio Rancho has received every incentive and tax break imaginable from state and local government since it landed here in the late 80s. In 2004, Intel was granted an additional $16 billion Industrial Revenue Bond, the largest ever in US history from Sandoval County, one of the poorest counties in the nation. Intel promised to invest those funds in New Mexico. They have not in any significant way, and I suspect the new plant in China was built using those funds. Here in New Mexico, Intel moved into a residential neighborhood, tapped into infrastructure paid for by local taxpayers and proceeded to poison our air and suck down 3 billion gallons of water every year from a declining aquifer.

I’m sure if you checked into it, you would discover the same story in Arizona and Oregon where Intel is paying little or no corporate taxes and has received every incentive those states could possibly offer. Ottellini’s comments are disingenuous and an insult to every American community that has given all but their first-born to attract these vampires to set up shop in their community

EPA Steps Up to the Plate

2010-03-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

CORRALES COMMENT VOL.XXIX, No. 1 February 20, 2010
SHOULD INTEL BE REGULATED AS ‘MAJOR SOURCE’ OF AIR POLLUTION?
Written by Jeff Radford
Third in a series
The federal investigation into Intel’s air pollution —by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry since 2004 and by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) since 2008— was triggered by persistent citizens’ complaints.
And probably by the change in presidential administration in Washington.
When N.M. Air Quality Bureau Chief Mary Uhl was asked January 20 what prompted EPA’s enforcement action leading to the in-depth inspection at the Intel-Rio Rancho site December 7-11, she replied, “It may have been, with this new administration, that staff at EPA felt that it’s time now to go forward with it.
“You know, the feeling that ‘We’ve been waiting eight years, and now it’s time to go.’”
The timing of EPA’s probe into air pollution problems at the Intel facility here also struck Corrales Mayor Phil Gasteyer when he read the EPA’s January 29, 2009 letter demanding air pollution information from Intel.
Gasteyer, who worked the halls of Congress for decades as a business representative, chuckled as he pointed out that the enforcement letter to Intel went out just nine days after Barack Obama was sworn in as president.
It’s not clear what, if any, changes will emerge in the way Intel is regulated for its around-the-clock emission of industrial chemicals.
An EPA spokesman in the Dallas regional office, David Bary, said the summary report on the December inspection would not be released until summer.
That is also about the time that the Atlanta-based Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) has said it will release its final report on the community health consultation regarding Intel pollution.
Responding to a Corrales Comment request for information about the EPA inspection, Bary said “The site visit was a response to several concerns expressed to us over the past several months from citizens living around the Intel facility. We decided it was prudent to conduct this inspection.”
The Dallas-EPA official said the inspection report will be used to “determine if any action is warranted.”
In Santa Fe, Uhl said she understood from EPA officials and from Intel managers that EPA investigators focused on whether it is appropriate for the Intel site here to be regulated as a “minor source” of air pollution.
EPA MAY DEMAND TIGHTER REGULATIONS FOR INTEL
Under EPA guidelines for enforcement of the federal Clean Air Act, “major sources” require closer regulation, more frequent monitoring and other oversight.
Intel fought long and hard to get its permit from the N.M. Air Quality Bureau changed to that for a “minor source” in the mid-1990s, primarily citing the need for operational flexibility to meet the fast-changing market for microprocessors.
Also at issue is whether the air pollution permit issued by the N.M. Air Quality Bureau should restrict the amount of toxic chemicals that can be emitted on an hourly or daily basis.
Since the “minor source” permit was issued in March 2000, Intel is just required to keep its emissions of regulated chemicals below a rolling annual average ceiling.
Those limits for Intel include 96.5 tons a year of volatile organic compounds (VOCs, mostly solvents) nine tons a year for any chemical on the EPA’s list of “hazardous air pollutants” (HAPs) and 24 tons a year for all HAPs combined, as well as limits for chemicals on the State of New Mexico’s “toxic air pollutants” (TAPs) list.
Presumably none of those limits would necessarily apply if Intel were regulated as a “major source.” It is staying under those limits that allows Intel to be regulated as a “minor source” of air
pollution.
N.M. Air Quality Bureau Chief Uhl said re-issuing Intel’s permit as a “major source” would not necessarily bring hourly or daily limits on emissions instead of the 12-month rolling average ceiling.
“Being a major source doesn’t necessarily mean there would be short-term limits,” she cautioned.
Uhl said she had been told by Intel managers that the EPA inspectors were concerned about “the lack of short-term limits and mid-term limits in the current permit.”
She asked EPA officials whether the enforcement action against Intel is part of a nation-wide effort for all semiconductor manufacturing facilities. “We were told this is just specific to this Intel site. It wasn’t specific to any other semiconductor facility anywhere in the country.”
It’s likely that EPA’s attention was drawn to the Intel-Rio Rancho operation as a result of the ATSDR’s investigation, initiated in 2004 by a petition filed with that agency by Rio Rancho realtor Marcy Brandenburg.
For years Brandenburg operated a small business near Intel where she suffered chronic illnesses she attributed to Intel’s fumes.
She joined Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water (CRCAW) and followed the proceedings and findings of the EPA-funded Corrales Air Toxics Study which the Air Quality Bureau’s Mary Uhl directed in 2002-04.
That $600,000 study was abruptly halted in spring 2004 when Uhl reported that a consultant’s air pollution plume modeling results showed Intel’s pollution was traced to nearby residents’ homes at the time they reported illnesses.
Such a finding was unacceptable politically. Cabinet level officials within Governor Bill Richardson’s administration huddled to find a way through the dilemma.
(See Corrales Comment Vol.XXIII, No. 5, April 24, 2004 “Late Report Links Illnesses to Intel Emission Plume” and Vol.XXIII, No. 9, June 19, 2004 “Cabinet Secretaries Don‘t Believe Air Problem”)
When the N.M. Secretary of Health and the N.M. Secretary of the Environment intervened at a public meeting in Rio Rancho in June 2004 to settle and close down the Corrales Air Toxic Study embroglio, there were many red faces —some from embarrassment, some from anger.
Within weeks, Brandenburg filed a petition with ATSDR asking for an independent investigation of what seemed to be causing chronic and acute illnesses which sufferers attributed to Intel’s air pollution.
After years of intermittent work on the Corrales community health consultation, including pouring over the mountains of data and testimony from the Corrales Air Toxics Study, ATSDR issued a draft report in January 2009. Since then the agency has been incorporating public comment on the draft.
Release of that draft ATSDR report in early 2009 coincides roughly with EPA-Dallas’ initiation of the enforcement action against Intel.
Prior to release of the draft, Brandenburg had been told by members of the ATSDR team that it would include discussion on the suitability of the “minor source” permit issued to Intel by the N.M. Air Quality Bureau.
Brandenburg said she was told members of the team were concerned about the adequacy of the permit.
But when the ATSDR draft report came out, it contained no mention of the agency’s doubts about the suitability of Intel’s “minor source” permit.
Corrales Comment interviewed the team about that discrepancy when it held public input sessions on the draft in February 2009.
TOXICS AGENCY DISCUSSED INTEL WITH EPA
ATSDR team leader Peter Kowalski said then it had discussed the Intel permit with EPA-Dallas officials while the document was in draft form, but that the agencies had concluded that the adequacy of the permit was a regulatory matter. Since ATSDR is only advisory in mission, not
regulatory, it was decided that matter would be left to EPA.
As ATSDR’s Debra Gable explained in a February 10, 2009 interview, “One of the particular requests from the petitioner was that we look at, evaluate, the air permit. That is something that we take very seriously, so one of the things we did as part of our process was to talk to our Office of General Counsel.
“Our counsel felt that for us to really look into a facility’s permit that is regulated by another agency may be somewhat outside of the authority given to us by congressional mandate. So for that reason we could not do a lot of evaluation of the permit. That is for the State of New Mexico and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.”
Shortly thereafter, EPA’s compliance enforcement action began with its January 29, 2009 letter to Intel invoking Section 114 of the Clean Air Act.
Earlier this month, Corrales Comment contacted ATSDR leader Kowalski about its role in EPA’s decision to target the Intel-Rio Rancho facility.
On February 9, Kowalski replied, “ATSDR informed EPA Region 6 about the ongoing community concerns about the Intel-New Mexico facility, but we do not know the specific basis for the EPA inspection.”
Kowalski added his team will include in its final community health consultation “any pertinent inspection report findings… if the EPA report is released before the ATSDR’s document.”
But, he noted, he did not expect to receive an advance copy of the EPA inspection report.
In an interview January 21, Intel officials Sarah Chavez, Thom Little and Liz Shipley were asked whether a change in regulations through a “major source” permit would be acceptable.
“It would be a lot of work for us, but would it change the operation? I don’t know that I can fully answer that,” Chavez said.
No other Intel site in the United States operates with a “major source” permit, she said, and the only such permit with which she is familiar actually has less conditions than Intel’s current “minor source” permit from the Air Quality Bureau.
CHANGE IN INTEL AIR PEMIT COULD HOLD RISKS
Chavez and Little questioned whether residents near Intel who have called for a “major source” permit really understood what the implications might be.
They acknowledged such a permit might have short-term emissions limits, but it could also allow even more emissions over all.
Said Little: “Obviously the public has a perception that having a major source permit would have a series of conditions that are beneficial.
“But I wonder if there are things that the community wouldn’t like in a major source permit? There could be a potential down-side.”
Chavez added, “One of the things the community needs to look at is if Intel were a major source, we don’t have to keep our emissions under 96.5 tons, right?” referring to the current annual limit for volatile organic compounds emissions.
“We could say ‘We’re going to emit 200 tons,’ or whatever the number would be.”
Comment: And you wouldn’t have to use the incinerators to burn off the VOCs.…
Chavez: “No, that’s right.
Comment: But in reality, you probably would.
Chavez: “We may, but again, if that’s the path it takes, there are other options we could probably take without having pollution control equipment operating.
“I mean, Thom’s right. What are the things that you lose that we have in our permit today if we were a ‘major source?’”
Little returned to the prospect that Intel might be allowed to release even more pollutants than it does now. From the community’s perspective, he suggested it might be advisable to consider the down-side of a “major source” permit: Intel might get to release much more of some pollutants than under the “minor source” permit.
“So it might be: ‘Be careful what you ask for,’” Little cautioned.
It’s also possible that the “minor source” permit could be retained while other restrictions are
imposed. Generally, however, state statutes do not allow more stringent regulations on air pollution than set by federal law and regulations.
Among other implications, that means even if state regulators are aware of dangerous substances being used at Intel, they are not allowed to set restrictions unless those compounds are already listed by EPA as “hazardous air pollutants” or allowed to be controlled under the N.M. “toxic air pollutants” program.
Uhl said other states, such as Texas and California, do have health-based standards for a wide range of chemicals not on the federal HAPs list. “Texas has a really comprehensive list of thousands of chemicals, but that is not in our regulations.”
Asked what process exists to import some of those additional controls for use in New Mexico, Uhl replied, “We would have to go to our Environmental Improvement Board and get those substances on our list.”
That is a cumbersome process, she said, adding she is not aware that any such attempt has ever been made.
But a similar process through the N.M. Environmental Improvement Board is now under way. A petition was entered to adopt regulations to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases to 25 percent below their 1990 levels by the year 2020. The request drew quick and stiff opposition. Several businesses and state legislators filed suit in January to block any action by the board.
Still, Uhl is cautiously optimistic that tighter air quality rules may be coming. She even hinted it might be time to take a fresh look at the Intel air pollution data generated through the aborted 2004 Corrales Air Toxics Study.
“The State put a lot of resources into that Corrales Air Toxics Study and so did EPA. Of course, the outcome was not the best for the community or the best for the Environment Department.
“But sometimes there has to be a little time that passes between these things, and then you can come back with a fresh view.”
Uhl was asked whether she thinks that is what’s happening now.
“I think so,” she replied. “I think it is with the new Obama administration. Sometimes it takes a leader to say ‘It’s okay to do these things,’ for people [regulators] to step outside the box.
“That’s what EPA has right now.”
‘NO HEALTH-BASED STANDARDS FOR TOXICS’
Given her agency’s decades of inspections and tracking of pollution from Intel, Uhl was asked whether the Air Quality Bureau is any closer to determining what may be causing nearby residents to blame Intel for their illnesses?
That’s not really something the bureau does, she explained. “But the question is: who does do that?” she added.
“Around the nation, people are getting sick and I know that the Centers for Disease Control has worked with EPA on such studies. It’s really hard to make that connection, because you’ve got so many other factors such as lifestyles that it’s very difficult to pin-point air as the sole reason why people are getting sick.
“But we are not really charged with making a determination like that. We don’t have the authority to say that something is making people sick.
“We do have the authority to say, ‘This facility is exceeding national health-based standards for one of the criteria air pollutants,’ but the toxics are not included in that.
“There are no criteria for those toxic chemicals.”
National ambient air quality standards have been set for just six “criteria air pollutants:” carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxides, nitrogen oxides, lead, ground-level ozone and particulate matter.
Even so, she said, her bureau was headed down the path of finding the source of health problems through the Corrales Air Toxic Study and the risk assessment that was supposed to conclude it.
And when ATSDR was called in, they too “made a stab at it just as we did with the Corrales Air Toxics Study. But they are not a regulatory agency, so even if they were to say ‘Intel’s making
people sick,’ they don’t have any way to do anything about it.”

What A Difference A New Administration Makes

2010-02-18T08:30:00.000-08:00

CORRALES COMMENT VOL.XXVIII, No. 24 February 6, 2010

EPA TARGETS INTEL FOR TIGHTER AIR POLLUTION CONTROLS
Written by Jeff Radford
Second in a series

The December 7-11 inspection of Intel’s air pollution records by Dallas Region Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials was the second step in a continuing enforcement action which could bring changes in the way Intel is regulated.
Documents obtained by Corrales Comment and interviews with N.M. Air Quality Bureau officials and Intel representatives indicate tighter regulations may be imposed.
That could include more testing, monitoring or even daily or hourly limits on emissions of airborne industrial chemicals.
EPA’s findings from its December 2009 in-depth inspection are not expected until summer, but Intel officials have already held exploratory, pro-active discussions with Air Quality Bureau regulators in Santa Fe about how any new controls might unfold.
Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water (CRCAW) has demanded for more than a decade that Intel’s air pollution permit from the N.M. Environment Department’s Air Quality Bureau be re-written to require continuous emissions monitoring, hourly and/or daily emissions limits and other controls.
The citizens’ group that organized in 1993 has repeatedly called for Intel’s permit as a “minor source” of air pollution be revoked and re-issued with tighter “major source” regulations.
The December EPA inspection at Intel by two Dallas officials and two consultants from Colorado was preceded by a January 29, 2009 formal letter to Intel initiating the agency’s investigation for compliance with the federal Clean Air Act.
Such letters are referred to as “114 letters,” indicating Section 114 of the federal Clean Air Act regarding regulatory action to assure compliance with pollution control requirements.
N.M. Air Quality Bureau Chief Mary Uhl said January 20 such letters “are typically tied to initiation of an EPA enforcement action. The ‘114 letter’ is a very detailed questionnaire about normal operations and changes you’ve made in your operations.
“It’s the way that EPA, for lack of a better word, gets ammunition against their target for an enforcement action.”
Uhl said she understood that EPA-Dallas wanted more frequent inspections and monitoring of Intel as well as short-term limits on allowable emissions.
On January 21, Corrales Comment asked Intel officials to provide a copy of EPA’s “114 letter” and the corporation’s response. Intel had not complied at press time, but a similar request to the Dallas regional office of the EPA was partially successful.
Dave Bary, EPA’s regional external communications director, e-mailed copies of the January 29, 2009 letter and a subsequent August demand for additional information. Bary said Intel’s responses to those letters could not be released because they are “part of an enforcement action.”
In the letters, EPA-Dallas’ Compliance Assurance and Enforcement Division demanded detailed answers to 27 comprehensive questions related to Intel-Rio Rancho’s air emissions.
The EPA “114 letters” to Intel contained the caveat that “We may use any information submitted in response to this request in an administrative, civil or criminal action.”
Intel Communications Manager Liz Shipley said February 1 that “Intel has provided responsive information to the EPA’s request. The EPA has not alleged any violations at this time.”
The questions are so comprehensive (covering any and all aspects of potential emissions, seeking data from 1990 onward) that it is unclear exactly on what EPA may be focusing.
Uhl was asked whether the EPA-Dallas enforcement action may have been triggered by the investigation into Intel’s pollution by the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), whose draft report was released about the same time EPA sent its January 2009 “114 letter.”
Uhl replied: “I have no idea what prompted it. We called EPA and said ‘hey, it would be nice if you told us that sources in our state were getting this letter.’”
Uhl is thoroughly aware of the Intel air pollution issues. She directed the bureau’s Corrales Air Toxics Study in 2002-04 which included extensive air sampling and monitoring, pollution dispersion computer modeling, and an acute and chronic public health analysis.
“The EPA’s request was extremely detailed,” Uhl noted. “Whoever wrote this letter knew the semiconductor industry. We were impressed with the details.”

DALLAS-EPA INVESTIGATING POLLUTION COMPLIANCE

Uhl was asked, based on her knowledge of the issues and of the regulatory process, what she thought EPA-Dallas is focusing on.
“The over-arching issue —and I think Intel would agree with this— is whether this is a ‘major source’ or a ‘minor source.’ That was readily apparent.
“There are very detailed technical questions about toxics, but you can tell the flavor of it is: is this really a minor source of air pollutants… is this permit appropriate?”
Back in the mid-1990s, the Air Quality Bureau staffer responsible for writing the Intel air pollution permit, Jim Shively, was subject to heavy political pressure to grant Intel its requested “minor source” permit.
Shively, now retired, contended Intel’s operations and especially its potential to emit large quantities of several highly toxic chemicals should be regulated as a “major source” of air pollution.
But political pressure inside the N.M. Environment Department wrested control of Intel’s permit away from Shively. Responsibility for writing the kind of permit Intel wanted was given to another staffer who did so with little delay.
Shively blasted the outcome as a “sham permit,” using the EPA’s own terminology and criteria. (See Corrales Comment Vol.XXII, No. 23, January 24, 2004 “Intel’s Air Pollution Permit a ‘Sham,’ Says Former Regulator”)
Shively, program manager for the bureau’s new source permitting section from June 1994 to March 2001, backed up that assessment in a highly-charged letter to N.M. Environment Secretary Ron Curry dated January 5, 2004.
His indictment of the process that approved the controversial pollution permit was based on his own experience as he struggled in vain to produce an enforceable permit for Intel’s Rio Rancho operations.
After he retired from the bureau, Shively was no longer under a prohibition against speaking out about the inadequacy of Intel’s air pollution permit. He held a news conference January 19, 2004 to explain why he feels the microchip manufacturer got a permit that does not protect the health of residents near the Intel plant.

Intel didn’t want to be held accountable for its emission of pollutants, Shively said, so they refused for more than five years to accept a regulatory permit that would have required close monitoring and short-term emission limits.
“The term ‘sham permit’ is actually a term used by the Environmental Protection Agency to describe a permit that is impractical and unenforceable,” he said.
Intel’s air pollution permit is unenforceable, Shively explained, “because it all comes down to these calculations to determine emission rates. These calculations are based on ‘emissions factors’ that Intel provides. But we never could figure out where these numbers came from.
“It is reliance on these emission factors that I think is just out of whack,” the veteran air quality specialist concluded. “It’s hard to have much confidence in the reported emissions number if you can’t verify it.”

SHOULD INTEL BE REGULATED AS ‘MAJOR SOURCE?’

Back in 2004, Shively insisted Intel’s air pollution permit had to be withdrawn and developed anew.
“First and foremost, the permit needs to be re-done. There are provisions in the permit to rescind it and re-open it. All three of the criteria for re-opening the permit apply,” he said.
But from that day to now, the political hierarchy within State government has declined to take that corrective step.
Shively said the political courage within NMED to call for corrections was lacking. “In my gut, I think they know this permit is not right and needs to be re-opened. But I don’t think they want to go there.
“To re-open this permit is not a safe thing for them to do. There’s a risk involved [for NMED officials]. This is a large, influential corporation, and there’s a risk involved if you mess with them.”
Days after he retired, Shively wrote a letter to N.M. Environment Secretary Curry outlining his concerns about the Intel permit.
In his letter, Shively gave reasons why he considers the current air pollution permit to be a sham, as defined by a federal policy memorandum.
“The Intel permit (No. 325M9) is a ‘sham’ based on an EPA memo dated June 13, 1989, and the process that produced it was a farce,” Shively wrote.
“The permit is impractical and unenforceable. This has been repeated and emphasized many times and by many people during the review process and since.”
Shively’s 2004 letter said he had supplied the names of 16 other former NMED employees who shared his concerns about the Intel permit and how it was approved.
Shively said the permit “is written with the emission factors provided by Intel that have never been independently validated. The department cannot determine Intel’s air emissions, nor can the factors or emissions be determined with any real confidence or precision.”
The result, Shively pointed out, is that “Intel can’t be found in violation of the emission limits in the permit. Only Intel knows the origin or validity of the factors.”
Intel’s Permit No. 325-M9, approved in March 2000 to cover the massive Fab 11-X expansion, is based almost entirely on calculating emissions of industrial pollutants, rather than measuring them. Those calculations are based on “emission factors,” or multipliers, generated at Intel’s research and development facility in Oregon.
Documents and notes in the bureau’s files on the Intel permit as far back at 1994 reveal that Shively repeatedly sought independent verification of those emissions factors.
Unless the bureau had some means of checking or validating the emissions factors, he said, state regulators were left only with Intel’s word that emissions do not exceed limits set in the permit.
Intel Communications Manager Shipley refuted that in a statement February 1. “Intel conducts quarterly emissions testing under the supervision of NMED which validates our calculated emissions,” she pointed out.
Shively’s January 2004 letter to Secretary Curry slammed the Environment Department for caving in to Intel’s pressures. “This permit, like many others, was granted due to pressure from the permittee, but worse than that, by an inappropriate desire internally to accommodate them to any extent possible. These actions reflect poorly on the entire bureau, and as a result, it has become severely compromised and lacks integrity and credibility.”
The former chief permit writer concluded his letter by urging Secretary Curry to re-open Intel’s air permit. “The department needs to rescind and re-issue the permit and conduct the review appropriately and in such a way that people know what is done, how it’s done and why it’s done.”
Shively’s letter to Curry was apparently triggered by requests by Corrales Comment to interview him on Intel’s air permit. In the opening paragraph, Shively wrote, “This letter is a follow-up to a meeting I had with [NMED Division Director] Jim Norton and [NMED public affairs director] Jon Goldstein on October 24, 2003 regarding the Intel air quality permit and Air Quality Bureau problems in general.
“This meeting was prompted by a reporter’s request for an interview with me prior to my retirement on December 31, 2003. The reporter made the request because I was a program manager of the New Source Review permitting unit of the Air Quality Bureau from June 1994 until March 2001.
“The reporter was denied the interview, and I requested the meeting with Jim Norton to at least inform him of how I expected the interview to go.”
Corrales Comment filed a Freedom of Information Act request with NMED in October 2003 to be allowed to interview Shively. NMED officials continued to thwart access to Shively until his retirement at the end of 2003.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) document to which Shively referred in his letter to Curry defining what constitutes a “sham permit” was issued by the EPA’s Office of Air Quality Planning and its Office of Enforcement and Compliance Monitoring. The memo is entitled “Guidance on Limiting Potential to Emit in New Source Permitting.”
The memo and a related EPA document explain that air pollution permit writers must guard against “sham permits” for big industrial operations (like the Intel facility above Corrales) which seek to be regulated as a “minor source” of pollution.

TIGHTER REGULATIONS AHEAD FOR INTEL?

Intel’s Permit No. 325-M9 (modification number 9) is, in fact, a permit to be regulated as a “minor source.”
A crucial consideration was the facility’s over-all “potential to emit;” how much toxic material could be released? Emissions potential from the Intel-Rio Rancho plant —the world’s largest microchip facility— are enormous.
The federal guidance also makes it clear that the permit can avoid becoming a “sham” only if it contains sufficient requirements to be federally enforceable.
When Shively was in charge of writing the permit for Intel, he fought to require Intel to install continuous emissions monitoring equipment, so that NMED compliance officers would know at all times what level of emissions were coming from the facility. He also fought against Intel’s insistence on permit conditions that set yearly averages, rather than hourly or daily, emissions limits.
A draft version of Permit No. 325-M9 produced by Shively called for continuous emissions monitoring and other safeguards. When it was released for public review August 20, 1998, it was roundly supported by residents and citizens’ groups but strenuously opposed by Intel.
That 1998 draft was quickly withdrawn and the more “flexible” permit Intel sought, without short-term emissions limits, without verifiable emissions factors and without continuous emissions monitoring, was approved in March 2000.
The permit which NMED approved was challenged by Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), the N.M. Environmental Law Center and Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water.
For their appeal to the N.M. Environmental Improvement Board, the citizens’ groups called in a California-based air pollution specialist, Jim Tarr, for expert testimony.
“I have been in this business a long time, and I get around the United States from time to time on these issues,” said Tarr, president of Stone Lions Environmental Corporation. “I work with a lot of state and local agencies.
“From what I see here, the regulatory effort by the State of New Mexico really stands out in my mind. It’s the worst I’ve ever come in contact with.

Intel's Bogus Permit

2010-01-28T13:30:00.000-08:00

Following is a letter written by one of Intel's neighbors:

To All Concerned:

Intel's "Technical Revision" of its permit was approved January 14, 2010. A signed and dated copy of the final revision by NMED Air Quality Bureau is available at the following website:

http://www.nmenv.state.nm.us/aqb/permit/ApplicationsPermitswithPublicInterest.htm

We, who live closest to Intel and are subjected daily to the increased quantity and probable synergistic reaction of Intel's many new chemicals, are hard pressed to comprehend the rationale behind the current regulations which allow Intel to get what it wants with every request for a "technical" revision.

The toxic effects of these increased emissions have reached far beyond the pocket of entrapment which is downhill from the escarpment. Residents from a wider circle in all directions from Intel are complaining of the caustic manner in which these chemicals are affecting the tissue in our throats, noses, eyes, skin, and central nervous system, to mention only a few.

Both Intel and New Mexico regulatory agencies vow that everything that is regulated in the state is being regulated according to the state statutes and according to accepted protocol for modeling and calculating emission factors.

The more I listen to Intel’s PR rhetoric the more I wonder to what extent New Mexico regulatory agencies are holding Intel Rio Rancho to the laws of our state?

We are dealing with the largest microchip manufacturing plant in the U.S., if not in the world, yet it seems the Rio Rancho Site is using the boiler-plate statistics formulated at sea level, in a flat terrain, on the assumption that all tools and processes have to be run in the same manner, with the same equipment, in all of their plants for production to be successful.

My house is about a quarter mile from Intel’s emission stacks, the way the crow flies and was built in1973 when everything west of the Main Canal was vacant mesa land in the sand hills. Intel arrived in the 1980s, was issued a Major Source Pollution Permit and began polluting with the beginning of, what was then considered to be small production.

I have been involved with Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water (CRCAW) in making every effort to get Intel to clean up their emissions because the chemicals in use then were affecting our respiratory systems and skin.

I have also attended all the public meetings Intel held to let the residents know what they were doing during the years we were complaining. I continue to attend all the Community Environmental Working Group meetings sponsored by Intel and designed by them to convince the public that Intel is a good neighbor concerned with environmental issues.

Intel’s Community Environmental Working Group (CEWG) which meets the 3rd Wednesday of the month at the Corrales Senior Center from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. is currently trying to work out a way to test for Silica because residents have believed for years that harmful particulate matter comes from Intel. Intel, of course, has denied the possibility of crystalline silica.

There have been too many human deaths in our area due to pulmonary fibrosis to dismiss Intel’s claims of not emitting crystalline silica. My dog’s post mortem suggests the possibility of that and also substantiates the presence of 3 of Intel’s toxic chemicals in her lung tissue.

Perhaps the approach to verify the validity of Intel’s calculated emission factors, their modeling results, and all the other “evidence” they present to the Air Quality Bureau of NMED needs to focus on whether or not these measurements are set at the Corporate level under entirely different circumstances than are present at the Intel Rio Rancho Site.

Measurements at the corporate level could look like apples while the measurements in New Mexico resemble oranges. How could any regulatory agency make sense out of that mix-up?

I am encouraged that U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has released its final version of the long, comprehensive study of Pulmonary Fibrosis. Please don’t leave any stone unturned to find the culprit that plagues us.

Respectfully,

Roberta H. King, Concerned Corrales Resident

Member of Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water

P.O. Box 503

Corrales, NM 87048

Letter to State EPA Official Jay Stimmel

2009-12-16T19:15:00.000-08:00

Dear Mr. Stimmel,

Thank you for letting me know about the forthcoming meeting on January 7, 2010 to discuss Intel's latest request for revisions in its emission factors for VOCs and HAPs.

Until the State of New Mexico recognizes the need to completely revise Intel's Minor Source Permit, changing it to a more truthful Major Source permit, these periodical changes (always rubber stamped) are the equivalent of switching around deck chairs on a sinking Titanic.

The pollution from Intel, especially of late, has been noticeable and noxious, both here at my home, two miles from the plant, and whenever I venture forth into Rio Rancho. I don't bother to make reports to NMED or Intel because you don't pay any attention to them. The stench appears to be solvents. These are not simply "odors;" these are olfactory alarm bells that together with headaches, sinus problems, coughing, skin rashes, etc., tell us that the air we're breathing is seriously polluted with extremely harmful contaminants, including known carcinogens, that Intel continually releases on our unsuspecting population, often without abatement from its faulty pollution abatement equipment.

It is my fervent hope that our new administration in Washington, as well as the EPA, and perhaps even the ineffectual lame duck Richardson administration's NMED, will recognize that the time for allowing large, politically powerful, wealthy, arrogant manufacturers to pollute at will and cause irreparable harm nearby living beings is over.

Sincerely,

Martha J. Egan
Village Representative, EPA Study Group, 2002-2004
Corrales, NM

Report from an Intel Whistleblower

2009-11-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

The following is an email I received from a former Intel employee who actually 'walked the walk' that the hypocrites at Intel claim to do, but in fact punish severely any employee who tries to live up to their corporate credo of 'openness.'

"I met with Peter (Kowalski) and his (ATSDR) team when they were in Rio Rancho last year. If his group or anyone else believes what the Intel community spokespersons or Safety managers are saying I have some land for sale, LOL. What bothers me the most is the ABQ Journal and Rio Rancho Observer newspapers have NO interest in these stories. If you read my whistleblower story you'll be blown away by the obvious inconsistancies at Intel. The worst part is they are probably the safest semiconductor plants in the world and this issue isn't exclusive to New Mexico. I personally worked at 2 other wafer fabs that were much more dangerous.

Do you think it was a coincidence that 2 close friends (of opposite sexes) who both worked around the same machine at Intel Fab 9 (with experimental high power RF generators) both got brain tumors in the same area of their heads? One was an engineering manager insider who is retired and to this day denies the RF exposure affected him. On another toolset I busted a fellow tech for leaving RF shields off of a machine and defeating the safety interlocks which exposed pregnant workers to RF energy. His church elder was the fab manager, guess what happened? Nothing, they transferred him to Arizona. Intel Safety refused to even investigate the potential RF exposure.

When I was a Safety Team Leader and Control of Hazardous Energy certifier I busted fellow workers for violating lockout/tagout and received a Written Warning from my managers (for being a bad team player) which is when I knew it was time to leave the madness. Since I have a box full of Corporate and Site Achievement Awards it's obvious I wasn't a mediocre worker but I also wasn't a YES man and spoke my mind when it came to safety.

As I stated in my Corrales Comment article there is a place for Semiconductor fabs but NOT in the middle of communities! It's too bad local and federal government officials are either incompetent, on the take, or getting smoke blown up their backsides."

Report from Intel Neighbors

2009-10-17T11:51:00.001-07:00

Following is an email sent to Intel's new point man on neighborly relations (sender name has been removed to protect privacy)

Thom,

I know you're new here...You probably haven't had time to review years of history from 1989 until now.
We are serious about what's happening to us.
Get ready for what's going to happen in this community in the future because there are people too sick to send in reports. We, and others are livid that rather than improving the situation, things have become worse with this new technology.There is continued damage to the health of residents on an almost "daily/nightly" basis plus damage already done to our health in the past.

Since I last reported, the skin on my eyelids is peeling. All around the eyes it is inflamed aburning since
the last exposure Neighbors are coughing, skin on hands burning and itching, heaviness of breathing noticed also sinuse and nausea problems and it's not the swine flu. At 8:52 p.m.today I stepped outside to turn off the water and started coughing until I got back into the house. This is in no way tolerable for us and it wouldn't be for you or anyone in your company.
Please understand that the new chemicals that are being used up there are causing illnesses as serious as we had in the 1990s. Vison is blurred, eyes are burning and skin is peeling off the eylids. One breath of the toxic air causes choking, coughing and in Patricia's case gasping for air. The toxins collect in her west side patio and in her house. With me it settles all around my property and comes in the house. This morning my eyes were swollen shut and inflamed I could hardly see. Each day my vision seems to be getting worse. Bunny lives at the top of Pueblo Los Cerros and gets blasted there (read the attached report).

The processes and chemicals your company is now using are drasticallly deteriorating air quality
downwind and downhill from your facility. There was was a period of time when we were happy not
to have had to report, so you can see the dramatic change that has occurred in this air shed in the last
several weeks.

We need help and we need it now. Who's going to be effective in bringing this about?
Although serious damage has already been done, we have a right to live here and not be more
injured. This level of toxicity in intolerable, action needs to be taken now and we will continue to
report to Intel and NMED until something is done.

Please call us with your solutions,
J.

Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2009 15:08:53 -0600

HI J, JUST WANTED TO TELL YOU, HOW SICK I FEEL TODAY. I HAVE BEEN NAUSEAS, HEADACHE, EYES, STOMACH AND TIRED TODAY SOMETHING AWFUL.
I SPOKE WITH PAT, WHO IS ALSO ILL TODAY.
PLEASE SEND A REPORT.TOM LITTLE NEVER RETURNED MY DETAILED MESSAGR.
THANK YOU,
B

Newsweek 's Green Awards

2009-10-15T20:13:00.000-07:00

Newsweek's rankings ignore emission toxicity, but only consider contributions to greenhouse warming while ignoring all other VOCs and HAPs.

By Newsweek standards, it's okay to poison nearby residents as long as it doesn't contribute to global warming! But even on that basis, the article documented that Intel releases the most greenhouse gases of Newsweek's 25 "greenest" companies.

Pointing out these important facts may be the way to respond to the touting of another "green award" for a major polluter.

Newsweek's high ranking of Intel (one of their advertisers) is as phony and political as the Green Zia awards that the State of New Mexico gave to Intel.

Fred Marsh

Newsweek Awards Intel Environmental Kudos

2009-09-27T11:27:00.000-07:00

In a recent Newsweek article, Intel was listed #4 among US companies for green contributions. Here's two letters sent to Newsweek in response:

Dear Editor:

Intel Corporation's behavior in the communities where it makes its chips is far from green. In New Mexico, Arizona and Oregon, community protest groups have formed in response to the toxic emissions the people in Intel neighborhoods are forced to breathe. In Corrales, New Mexico there have been three deaths from pulmonary fibrosis among individuals living close to the plant.

While it's commendable that Intel is producing a chip that uses less energy and thus contributes less to greenhouse warming, any "green" award should certainly take into account the toxicity of the emissions being vented into the environment and doing real harm to real people.

Barbara Rockwell
Author of "Boiling Frogs - Intel vs. the Village," IUniverse 2005

Dear Editor,

Living downwind from Intel's Rio Rancho, New Mexico plant, I find Newsweek's naming Intel a "green" corporation ludicrous. Compliant state and federal regulators allow Intel to "calculate" rather than measure its tons of hazardous and toxic air emissions. Intel's own consultant, TRC, reports that Intel releases carbon tetrachloride, nitric acid, fluor-phosgene and other carcinogens in quantities many times above safe levels.

Sincerely,

Martha J. Egan
Village of Corrales Representative
EPA Toxic Air Pollutants Task Force 2002-2004

New York Times Editorial

2009-05-23T10:09:00.000-07:00

Editorial
Intel and Competition

Published: May 21, 2009

As American regulators slept through the past eight years, several authorities overseas decided that the Intel Corporation has been abusing its near monopoly position in the microchip market to squeeze out its smaller rival Advanced Micro Devices, constraining consumers’ choice.

It is now the United States’ turn. The Federal Trade Commission, which opened a formal investigation into Intel’s business a year ago, should decide without delay whether to pursue the company in court. The issue is not just whether Intel’s tactics against A.M.D. amount to illicit behavior. The larger question is whether Washington is willing to pursue monopolies vigorously for predatory practices and foster an environment where competition and innovation can thrive.

Since 2005, regulators in Japan and South Korea have ruled against Intel. This month the European Commission slapped the company with a $1.44 billion fine. It found that Intel has been giving hidden rebates to computer makers that bought all or virtually all of their chips from Intel and paying some to delay or hinder the introduction of products that had A.M.D. microprocessors.

Intel denies those accusations, arguing that the volume rebates it offers never carried the alleged quid pro quos. The company appealed the Korean fine and said it would appeal the European decision.

For much of the Bush administration, regulators declined to look formally into the charges against Intel. That reluctance was the product of an extremely narrow reading of antitrust law, validated by a conservative Supreme Court that has become increasingly hostile to antitrust enforcement.

In the Bush administration’s view, to get in trouble a monopolist must do worse than use unfair methods to undermine a competitor. Regulators must usually prove that consumers were directly hurt, typically through high prices. When the wrongdoing is to offer a client conditional rebates — meaning lower prices — that can be especially hard to prove.

That view of consumer harm is too restrictive. It often seems to ignore the fact that a dominant firm that uses unfair tactics to marginalize its rivals deprives consumers of choice, another form of harm. Without competitors there is no competition. Without competition there is no incentive for innovation, or to reduce prices.

The Obama administration has a different view. The Justice Department’s antitrust division has rescinded Bush administration guidelines intended to shield monopolies from antitrust accusations. The F.T.C. is also likely to be more active under its new chairman, Jon Leibowitz. He is already considering pursuing future antitrust cases with a little-used provision of antitrust law that directly outlaws unfair methods of competition. The American economy cannot thrive without antitrust laws. It is time to start enforcing them.

A Scientist's Response to Intel Re ATSDR Report

2009-04-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

After a somewhat quick and dirty review of the first 14 pages of the Intel response letter, I offer the following talking points for you to consider.

The first and major comment is that most of the Intel letter is at odds with the factual evidence, including FTIR measurements made on their property by their own contractor during an especially low-production period.

We hope ATSDR will base the content of their final report on facts, rather than who can afford the best PR department.

Intel's slick letter, filled with false and misleading information, is typical of the how the deck has consistently been stacked against the public by Intel and the politicians who benefit from Intel's wealth.

ATSDR may not want specific points, and you may not be able to bring up the points without seeming to read. But you could always say you have extensive notes you'll be referring to.

2nd paragraph on page 2: Intel taking credit for involving the community must mean the Community Environmental Working Group. Intel established this group, chose the members, the leader, and facilitator, and controls the agendas. This is and always has been part of Intel's PR effort to project a favorable image.

Later in that same paragraph, they claim "periodic measurements of emissions to verify that plant emissions are within specified limits" They neglect to say that they report only calculated emissions, using unverified emission factors as multipliers. And that their permit, called a sham and a farce by Jim Shively, NMED's permit expert, was written to be "bust-proof and unenforceable."

Two other former NMED employees went on record supporting Mr. Shively, in published interviews. And another 16 NMED retirees expressed their willingness to do likewise. Robert Samaniego, then the NMED Permit Compliance Officer, admitted in a published interview that the reason it took five years to approve Intel's minor-source permit was because a large majority of NMED professionals opposed it. Their professional concerns were over-ridden when the governor ordered his political appointee, who headed NMED, to approve whatever Intel wanted.

The fact that Intel complies with a "bust-proof" permit proves nothing. It's like bragging about not getting a speeding ticket when driving on an Autobahn that has no speed limit. We have often said, and they have never denied, Intel could release more than 5 tons of phosgene in an hour or less, killing tens of thousands of people and animals, without violating their sham permit. And Intel's permit allows them to release ton quantities of other chemicals that are even more toxic.

Three Intel whistle-blowers have also gone on record in published interviews to say Intel knew it was releasing hazardous levels of toxic chemicals, but made a deliberate effort to cover up that information. The whistle-blowers lost their jobs when they refused to be part of that cover up.

First new paragraph on page 3: Intel takes more credit for their fully-controlled CEWG, which I've already covered.

Near the end of page 3: Although Radian was hired by Intel, and wanted to please their customer, the Radian risk assessment expressed concern about the downwash of Intel emissions into nearby residential areas. The Radian report also said Intel stacks were too low.

The downwash problem continues unabated. And recently, Intel ignored the recommendation of its own CEWG to raise their stacks to a level that would significantly decrease their toxic chemicals that get into the breathing zone of nearby residential areas. Instead, Intel chose only a small height increase to prevent their stacks from being visible from Highway 528, to promote the fictional image of being a safe industry.

The modeling analysis mentioned in the last line on page 4 found a strong correlation between airflow from Intel when nearby residents reported strong chemical odors and resulting adverse health effects.

The last paragraph on page 5 quotes Mary Uhl, of NMED. They fail to say that Ms. Uhl earlier stated that the Koracin modeling study identified Intel as the most likely source of the toxic emissions.

Ms. Uhl and Ms. Len Flowers of the NM Dept. of Health had scheduled presentations in support of the Koracin report findings at the next Task Force meeting. To prevent those presentations, Environment Secretary Ron Curry canceled all Task Force meetings for the next six weeks, and then prevented the Task Force from writing their final report by having NMED write it, to ensure the exoneration of Intel.

Ms. Uhl was soon thereafter promoted to Section Chief, perhaps in exchange for her belated silence.

The FTIR monitoring by Arcadis is cited on page 7. Not mentioned is that Intel was a pre-existing customer of Arcadis services, and that Arcadis had listed increased business from Intel as one of its major goals for 2003. This blatant conflict of interest resulted in Arcadis declaring phosgene and nine other measured Intel-released chemicals as false positives.

The second new paragraph on page 7 states "the large majority of chemicals detected in highest concentrations are those associated with vehicle emissions."
That may have been true during the day, but the large majority of chemicals found after midnight, when vehicle traffic is lowest, are Intel emissions. Moreover, the highest concentrations of these post-midnight chemicals were found at Intel's east boundary, closest to residential areas, and furthest from Highway 528.

The Intel weather station cited in the first new paragraph on page 8 does not reflect the airflow distortions caused by Intel buildings, nor does it account for the downwash caused by Intel buildings.

This same paragraph again focuses on daytime vehicle emissions, whereas most resident complaints are reported for the post-midnight hours.

The modeling discussion on page 9 again tries to confuse us by focusing on daytime sources, whereas the strong chemical odors and adverse health effects of nearby residents occur when other possible sources are minimal.

As discussed in one of the public comments sent earlier, Gradient's main business is defending industrial polluters. Gradient failed to interview even one resident who reported adverse health effects, but instead relied totally on input from Intel and NMED.

Intel's attempt to blame any and all other possible sources for their own toxic emissions is repeated on page 11. This ignores the strong correlation found by the Koracin modeling study. It also ignores the fact that strong chemical odors and related health problems were absent until Intel greatly expanded its operations in the early 1990s.

On page 12, Intel claims to spend $500,000 a year to validate the effectiveness of its emission controls. This is another attempt to mislead ATSDR and the public, because Intel reports only calculated values (even when their infrequent measurements show much higher release).

As long as only calculated values are reported, no one - including Intel - knows what they actually release. The cited $500,00 should be chalked up as another image-building expense.

In the first new paragraph on page 13, Intel opposes more monitoring. That is not surprising because Intel consistently opposed any and all monitoring until Corrales residents donated $93,000 to buy its own community owned and operated FTIR. Only then did Intel change course and "allow" NMED to begin monitoring. Interestingly, NMED's opposition to monitoring closely followed Intel's change.

If Intel were as innocent as they claim, they would welcome any and all monitoring that would confirm their innocence. However, their past and present opposition is more likely an effort to prevent self-incrimination.

Intel's conclusion on pages 13 and 14 ignores the hundreds of complaints reported by Intel's nearby residents. It is worth noting that hundreds of these complaints were "lost" by NMED during a computer changeover.

Hmmmmm!

Fred Marsh, CRCAW

Poison Gas Concerns

2009-04-24T13:40:00.000-07:00

CORRALES COMMENT VOL.XXVIII, No. 3 March 21, 2009

Federal Toxics Agency Reviews Poison Gas Concerns Over Intel’s Waste Chemical Emissions

By Jeff Radford

Fourth in a series

The deadly chemical warfare gas phosgene is not being released into the air as a byproduct of Intel’s microchip manufacturing, say federal investigators for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).

Their finding is based on Intel’s assertion that the waste acid gases that could form phosgene are isolated in the factories’ exhaust streams.

Even so, Intel has insisted on being allowed to discharge to the open air over Corrales 5.3 tons of phosgene as part of its State-issued air pollution permit. That is, Intel officials say they neither use nor release phosgene in any manufacturing process, but in case it was somehow formed and released, Intel would still comply with its permit as long as the amount was under 5.3 tons in a year’s time.

But retired Los Alamos National Laboratories chemist Fred Marsh has contended for years that Intel does release phosgene, despite its denials. He says he has seen phosgene’s chemical signature in the spectrographs produced at a Corrales home downwind from Intel…and so have analysts studying results of other Fourier transform infrared spectrometers (FTIRs) positioned around Intel.

“Although Intel has always denied using phosgene, their permit addresses what is released, not what is used,” Marsh said after reviewing the community health consultation draft report issued last month.

“And the ATSDR report confirms that phosgene is readily formed in the Intel exhaust from carbon tetrachloride that Intel has used and released in multi-ton quantities, as we have been saying for many years.

“Because Intel claims that they neither use nor release phosgene, I have repeatedly asked Intel representatives to delete the 5.3 tons of phosgene their permit allows them to release,” Marsh noted. “But they have always insisted on keeping their ‘right’ to release a quantity of phosgene that could kill tens of thousands of people.”

A leader of Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water (CRCAW) until he moved out of state a few years ago, Marsh was an active participant in the earlier Corrales Air Toxics Study funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and administered by the Air Quality Bureau of the N.M. Environment Department (NMED).

His expertise was key to selection of the FTIR purchased with community donations in 2003. The device detects and displays chemicals that modify the spectrum of a reflected infrared light beam.

Two other FTIRs were operating at the same time when air monitoring was conducted for the 2002-04 Corrales Air Toxic Study. One was on site under contract to the Air Quality Bureau; another was operated by an Intel consultant.

All three detected a chemical identified as phosgene, March recalled.

Although the voluminous data collected for the Air Toxics Study comprised much of the material ATSDR studied for its four-year health consultation, the agency discounted those detections of phosgene, apparently accepting Intel’s interpretation that the FTIR readings were “false positive.”

“ATSDR disregards the FTIR measurements made by [Intel consultant] TRC on Intel property that conclusively showed many toxic chemicals at orders of magnitude above safe levels,” March contends. “ATSDR also refused to look into the dismissal of phosgene and other toxic chemicals as ‘false positives’ even though they were found by all three FTIRs during the same period.”

This is how ATSDR addressed the phosgene issue verbatim in the recently released community health consultation. “Community Concern – Phosgene and False Positives. Four compounds detected by the open path FTIR, including nitric acid and phosgene, were determined to be ‘false positives’ by the N.M. Environment Department, yet phosgene was reported by Intel-New Mexico.

“ATSDR Response: Phosgene can be formed when chlorinated hydrocarbon compounds (e.g. chloroform) are exposed to high temperatures, such as what occurs in thermal oxidizers. Intel-New Mexico reports, however, that its exhaust ventilation system is designed to prevent corrosive chlorine-containing gases from being vented to the thermal oxidizers.

“Intel-New Mexico and NMED open path FTIR used different methods for analyzing their data. ATSDR did not attempt to re-evaluate false positive determinations made by NMED’s consultant-spectroscopists. ATSDR is recommending that Intel-New Mexico, in partnership with New Mexico, educate the public on the process controls and safety measures that prevent the formation of phosgene during Intel-New Mexico plant operations.”

That phrasing suggests that ATSDR accepts Intel’s assurance that phosgene cannot be produced. The ATSDR team does not recommend that further testing for phosgene be conducted, but rather that Intel officials should persuade nearby residents that the lethal gas can’t physically be released.

ATSDR tem member Debra Gable, an environmental health scientist, explained their position this way: “We’re saying if that information [that Intel is not releasing phosgene] is available, then it should be provided to the community.”

But Marsh says the ATSDR response on phosgene release apparently misunderstands how the chemical would be formed and routed to the air. “The carbon tetrachloride also reacts with water vapor at slightly elevated temperatures to form phosgene. And these are the conditions in the scrubbers through which carbon tetrachloride is released.

“I made a major fuss about Intel actually measuring 1.4 tons of carbon tetrachloride being released from just one of their many scrubbers in the fourth quarter of 2003. Yet they reported zero release, based on their phony emission factor.

“When I complained to Robert Samaniego [then Intel’s air permit compliance officer] about this emission factor obviously being too low, he agreed, but told me only Intel could initiate emission factor changes.”

Therefore, Marsh pointed out, ATSDR’s dismissal of possible phosgene releases “totally ignores the fact that there is an obvious and plausible mechanism by which phosgene can be formed in Intel scrubbers, and it ignores the fact that three different FTIRs using three different operators and three different software packages all found phosgene near Intel during the same period.”

“Moreover, phosgene was found hundreds of times by TRC, Intel’s own contractor, with the highest frequencies and levels found at Intel’s eastern boundary adjacent to Corrales residential areas.”

When pressed by Corrales Comment whether ATSDR itself had been convinced that phosgene is not being released, team leader Peter Kowalski replied, “They said the waste gas streams are kept separated; essentially keeping the chlorinated compounds out of the gas stream that’s designated for volatile organic compounds… non-chlorinated compounds. That’s what we based our opinion on.”

And as to the acceptability of declaring readings to be false positives, Kowalski said “It’s not our role to issue a second opinion on the appropriateness of false positives. But we do feel like the FTIR methodology has a kind of science and an art to it.”

At any rate, he said, “We would want an up-front methodology on how to deal with possible ‘false positives.’”

Corrales Comment pressed Kowalski for a definitive statement on whether his team is convinced phosgene can’t be released. He replied, “Based on information provided from Intel, yes, we believe there is no possibility that phosgene is being released.

“But we will look further into whether hexaflouroethane is released.”

Although Marsh had identified the compound hexaflouroethane as a likely cause of Corrales residents’ illnesses back in 2004, ATSDR’s study did not examine that in the draft report.

The chemical, often described as a “semiconductor gas,” has been detected and measured in the air at times when villagers living near Intel have reported industrial odors and sickness, Marsh pointed out.

Hexaflouroethane is a chemical precursor to hydrogen fluoride which Intel admits using and releasing. It is much heavier than air and therefore might be expected to sink to ground level after leaving the factories’ stacks.

It was, in fact, repeatedly detected at ground level by FTIRs around Intel during the Corrales Air Toxics Study 2002-04. It was found more often than any other industrial chemical, 36 times, by the community-purchased FTIR during the period September 13-29, 2003, Marsh recalled.

The chemist said health effects hexaflouroethane produces on humans are strikingly similar to complaints by Corrales residents over the past decade and a half: respiratory problems, headaches, nausea, throat, skin and eye irritations, coughing, dizziness, fatigue and loss of consciousness.

It is also odorless and invisible.

When he found hexaflouroethane’s signature in the spectrometer’s displays, Marsh thought he might have solved a big part of the mystery. He noted that the chemical reacts with water vapor (such as within the lungs or in the airborne water vapor pouring from Intel’s cooling towers and acid gas scrubbers) to form the toxic hydrogen fluoride and carbonyl fluoride.

“Because carbonyl fluoride is so similar to phosgene (carbonyl chloride) in structure and toxicity, it is also known as flourophosgene,” Marsh pointed out.

The retired chemist made that point to Intel’s corporate-level physician, Don Fisher, in November 2003. “We found tetraflouromethane and hexafluoroethane more often than any other compounds, and these were always present when people got sick,” he wrote. “Because the New Jersey Department of Health Hazardous Facts Sheets included a list of symptoms for hexaflouroethane that were nearly identical to those reported by some of Intel’s nearest neighbors, we felt we had identified the culprit.

“I stand behind my statement that hexaflouroethane can react with water to form hydrogen fluoride and carbonyl fluoride (also known as flourophosgene). The fact that carbonyl fluoride was found by neither FTIR [operated by the Air Quality Bureau and by Intel] is not surprising, as neither instrument has this compound in its reference library.”

In a presentation Marsh made to the NMED-assembled task force for the Corrales Air Toxics Study, he noted that “Dr. Don Fisher, a physician on Intel’s payroll, claims that carbonyl fluoride cannot be formed or exist long enough to be measured. Yet as a scientist, I am swayed by experimental evidence to the contrary. Intel’s own third quarter report for 2003 includes TRC stack testing data in which carbonyl fluoride was measured on Scrubber 8s.4.2ab at 2,280 parts per billion, and again later at the same scrubber at more than 1,600 parts per billion.

“This is the same Central Utility Building scrubber that is closest to Corrales residential area, whose malfunctions (according to Intel whistle-blowers) have been the source of many of the toxic pollutants that reach Corrales.”

Marsh’s paper for the task force then referenced a published article, “Using a Catalytic Technique to Abate PFC Emissions in a 300-mm Etch Tool,” which he said “provides additional proof that carbonyl fluoride is formed in semiconductor manufacturing processes.

“In fact, that article discusses how the toxic carbonyl fluoride byproduct of the semiconductor manufacturing process can be removed by a pre-treatment scrubber.”

Marsh took Intel to task for denying it releases such toxins. “Intel continues to deny that it is the source of the phosgene that was found hundreds of times by its own contractor on Intel property and in nearby neighborhoods. Yet there can be no question that Intel releases flourophosgene, which is as toxic as phosgene or perhaps even worse, as its production is accompanied by hydrogen fluoride.

“Moreover, published symptoms of exposure to flourophosgene are identical to those reported in the [CRCAW-distributed] Corrales Health Survey by hundreds of residents who live near Intel,” Marsh reported in his 2004 presentation.

“So whether it’s phosgene or flourophosgene, there can be no doubt that Intel is the source of the toxic compounds” which he thinks have caused Corrales residents’ illnesses.

After reviewing the ATSDR draft report last month, Marsh reflected on the situation in which Corrales residents find themselves. “A terrible mistake was made when Intel was allowed to build one of the world’s largest semiconductor manufacturing plants within several hundred yards of existing residential areas.

“That mistake was compounded when NMED was given the political mission of protecting Intel as its client, even at the expense of public health and the environment. NMED’s approval of Intel’s ‘minor source’ permit, and its automatic granting of any and all permit changes requested by Intel, led us to seek ATSDR’s help,” Marsh observed.

“Although we’re pleased with many of ATSDR’s initial findings, we hope our input to their draft report will help them to identify Intel as a source of our pollution problem, and then persuade NMED and Intel to work with us to restore the clean air we enjoyed before Intel’s arrival.”

ATSDR Calls for Tests on Silica

2009-03-14T12:21:00.000-07:00

Intel activist Fred Marsh wrote the following response to the ATSDR report:

I am submitting the following as a public comment to the ATSDR draft report.

I retired from Los Alamos National Lab after a 39-year career as a research chemist. After my retirement I moved to Corrales and became active in Corrales Residents for Clean Air & Water. My involvement included being a member of the Corrales Air Quality Task Force.

I have always contended that conditions in Intel's RTOs are nearly ideal for directly producing crystalline silica when Intel's organo-silicon compounds are burned. So the recent discussion about the temperature at which amorphous silica is converted to crystalline silica is irrelevant.

While I was a member of the Task Force, Intel's Mindy Koch, also a Task Force member, claimed to have proof that Intel released only amorphous silica. When I asked to see that proof, she sent me an analysis report for silica that had been scraped from an RTO burner nine years earlier. I told Ms. Koch that silica deposited on an RTO burner in no way represented what was released into the air.

I then asked Ms. Koch to have particulates collected from the gas exiting their RTOs and have it analyzed by x-ray diffraction, but she never responded to my request.

As a Task Force member I also repeatedly asked NMED to collect samples from the RTO exit for silica analysis, but NMED never did so. If they had, we could have had actual evidence of the silica form, one way or another.

Perhaps NMED preferred Intel's unsupported claims of amorphous silica, to evidence that might prove otherwise.

Just as NMED has always approved every emission factor Intel uses to calculate zero release, with no supporting evidence to justify these emission factors. (even when actual measurements show multi-ton quantities have been released).

This addresses the heart of the problem, which is that NMED, the State agency that should be protecting the public, instead has been given the political assignment of protecting Intel, no matter the cost to public health and the environment.

Fred Marsh
Corrales Residents for Clean Air & Water

Postcript: Incredibly, a Florida woman, Caroline Macatugob, contacted the Corrales Comment on February 12 to report that she is dying of the same rare lung disease that killed two Corrales residents in the 2001 and 2002. She wrote that she lived near Intel from 1983 to 1990: "Pulmonary fibrosis is very rare, and my slides were even sent to the military hospital in Bethesda who said they'd never seen anything like it. I now have 20 percent of my lungs left. Please, please send my info along to the ATSDR (as part of the public comment period)."

That was done, and ATSDR lead investigator Peter Kowalski is recommending additional sampling for crystalline silica and will research the issue further for the final ATSDR report.

For the full story, go online to corralescomment.com and read the March 7, 2009 issue.

The ATSDR Report

2009-02-26T19:11:00.000-08:00

The long-awaited report from the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) came out this month and was presented to the public. The report was not the total whitewash that we've come to expect but neither was it conclusive enough to identify Intel's air pollution as the cause of illnesses that have plagued residents for years. The investigation was petitioned by CRCAW member Marcy Brandenburg five years ago. The ATSDR, a sister agency of the Center for Disease Control (CDC) conducted interviews with the residents, Intel and the NM Environment Department. The final report was then reviewed by the federal EPA, the NM Environment Department and Intel. We can only guess how much was edited out.

The air monitoring was not enough to convince the investigators: "Results from these monitoring efforts are not adequate to evaluate fully the potential public health consequences of air emissions from Intel New Mexico. The primary limitation of the technology is its inability to measure low levels of multiple air contaminants over time...as a restult, ATSDR cannot fully evaluate potential exposure to nearby residents, nor can ATSDR address the potential health impacts of chemical mixtures."

The ATSDR recommended further monitoring (not likely) and better regulatory oversight in the way Intel calculates its emissions (even more unlikely). In a letter to Mary Uhl, the NM Air Quality Bureau Chief, the ATSDR suggested four approaches to gain the data that would allow conclusions about Intel's impact on public health. Two of those recommendations call for additional testing on emissions from pollution control equipment and two related to verification of Intel's claims regarding calculations for pollution control efficiency.

The Corrales Comment reported "Perhaps the boldest of ATSDR's four recommendations is its challenge to Intel's "emissions factors" used to calculate pollutant releases. Technical specialists working with CRCAW, notably retired Los Alamos chemist Fred March and data analyst Steve Martinez, have for years criticized State regulators' blind acceptance of Intel-generated "emissions factors" used to calculate emissions reported to the Air Quality Bureau. Citing proprietary information generated at Intel's research facility, chemical usage at each stage of the microchip manufacturing process is said to send x-quantity of waste chemical to pollution control equipment and thence to the atmosphere. Increasingly in recent years, Intel has revised its "emissions factors" downward and for many chemicals the factor is now zero. As Intel critic Fred Marsh has complained, no matter how large the actual release of those chemicals, when multiplied by zero the result is always zero - which is then reported to the Air Quality Bureau. State regulators have consistently admitted that they have no way of verifying the factors Intel uses, and thus simply accept the calculated releases to the air.

But now ATSDR has tactfully recommended that the Air Quality Bureau adopt a less trusting approach: "Continue to implement thorough review of proposed changes to emissions factors. Intel New Mexico's facility-wide emissions are estimated largely from emisisons factors, any change to which NMED revews and approves. ATSDR encourages NMED to continue this practice in the interest of transparency to community members, and to carefully review all underlying assumptions."

The Corrales Comment was not allowed to interview Bureau Chief Uhl. Instead her boss Jim Norton emailed the Comment that "NMED spent approximately $500,000 to study the air quality in the communities near Intel (gross exaggeration)....and found there was NO evidence of an increased health risk for residents living near Intel." (This despite a health survey in which over 600 people claimed health problems from living near Intel.) While not totally dismissing ATSDR's conclusions of insufficient data and the need for better monitoring, Norton's response strongly suggests a lack of intention to require tighter control or oversight for Intel.

This leaves it up to Intel to voluntarily do the monitoring - on its own terms - which it has indicated it might be willing to do. The fox has been left to guard the chicken coop - a situation that has been status quo since Intel set up shop in New Mexico.

Industrial Revenue Bonds Revisited

2008-10-20T20:58:00.000-07:00

The $700 billion requested to avoid a major financial meltdown amounts to $2,295 for each of 305 million Americans.

This financial crisis presents an opportunity to revisit the $26 billion given by Sandoval County to Intel as industrial revenue bonds (IRBs).

The proposed federal bail-out is intended to rescue major financial institutions from the verge of bankruptcy, whereas the $26 billion IRBs were given to one of our strongest and wealthiest corporations.

The $26 billion gift to Intel amounts to more than $245,000 for each of the estimated 102,120 residents of Sandoval County; more than 110 times higher than the $2,295 per-person cost of the proposed federal bail-out!

Because Sandoval County Commissioners attached no condittions to their most recent $16 billion IRB, Intel has spent $4 billion on a new plant in Arizona, and has committed to build additional multi-billion dollar plants in China and India.

Meanwhile, in New Mexico, Intel has cut its Rio Rancho workforce in half, while refusing to raise its exhaust stacks to the height recommended by numerous experts and Intel's own Community Working Group. Intel's lower stacks will continue to subject nearby residents to excessive levels of toxic emissions.

We allhope the federal government gets a better return on its investment than we've received from Intel.

However, on a per capita basis, the $700 billion federal bail-out is chicken feed compared to the deal Intel foisted on Sandoval County.

Fred Marsh
Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water

Once Again PR Trumps Public Health

2008-06-17T11:12:00.000-07:00

Intel has rejected the recommendation of its own citizens' technical advisory group to raise Intel's stacks to 40 meters from the current 23 meters. It will raise the stacks to 30 meters, not high enough to prevent the building down-wash effect. This has been a bone of contention since the mid-90s when a consulting firm hired by Intel noted that the short stacks allowed toxic emissions to blow into nearby residential neighborhoods. Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water (CRCAW) had made the same recommendation a few years earlier but to no avail.

The reason for Intel's refusal to raise the stacks? PR ! Yes folks, once again, Intel's PR machine has won out over public health. - Intel feels that the higher stacks will lead the public to perceive that this may indeed not be the 'clean industry' it pretends to be.

And here's a dispatch received today from one of Intel's suffering neighbors:

"After I called Intel the worst was yet to come...I had heart palpitations and thought I was having a heart attack.. The skin on my face is red, itching and burning. .Needless to say I tossed and turned the rest of the night never slept. The house reaks of residual chemicals. Outside the air is stagnant with the same.

I just found out that Patricia experienced a severe reaction to the chemicals and was not able to get into her car to leave. She called Frank Gallegos and Mary Uhl. She reported this to Jeff this morning before she knew I was sick too. Jeanne Armenta who lives on Coronado Road called saying she woke up in the middle of the night the night before with the same symptoms.

This has been the most debilitating since the early nineties. In the meantime, Intel is playing games with the stacks.and CEWG. This is a deadly assault on human beings. Where do we go from here?"

Intel Whistleblower Tells of Toxic Exposures

2007-12-19T19:58:00.000-08:00

Written by Jeff Radford
Corrales Comment
Tuesday, 18 December 2007

The third former Intel employee whistleblower to speak out publicly about the company's toxic chemical usage believes such factories shouldn't be allowed near residential areas.

In an interview following his remarks November 7 to officials with the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), Patrick Callahan said, "I'm deeply concerned about the community. We shouldn't have chemical factories next to our schools and neighborhoods, but I'm more concerned about the workers themselves."

Callahan, who worked for Intel for 18 years, eventually as a senior technician and manufacturing safety specialist, called for a thorough review of presumed safe levels of exposure to industrial chemicals.

Callahan said his own exposures to toxic chemicals at Intel caused chronic liver damage. "The bottom line is, whoever is in charge of determining what level of chemicals is safe needs to go back and re-visit all of that. Most of that data was set in the Sixties, and the industry has changed.

As far as putting computer chip factories next to schools and in residential neighborhoods, that's just ridiculous. That needs to change."

"Now, are you or I or anybody going to be able to influence a $10 billion corporation to move move their $3 billion factory out to the desert where it's not next to a neighborhood? I seriously doubt it."

Callahan recounted several incidents at Intel in which he was exposed to toxic chemicals. He detailed his repeated attempts to convince Intel managers to follow safety procedures established at the corporate level.

"The purpose of me coming forward," Callahan said, "is to share this information to make it safer for workers and to educate the public on what goes on, and maybe with the right momentum, people can make changes and not put these factories right next to people's schools.

"You know, technology is inextricably part of our lives. It's used in everything from kid's video games to your microwaves to your cars to everything, and it has improved the lives of others.

"But it doesn't have to be done in neighborhoods next to where people live."
Callahan said the Intel Rio Rancho plant is far from the worst semi-conductor facility he has seen. The problem, he suggested, is that the microchip making process was invented by engineers with little concern about the effects of industrial chemicals on humans. "The inventors are engineers, not industrial hygiene researchers. They invented machines and figured out 'if you mix this chemical and put it in a plasma field you can etch off metal."

"Brilliant people came up with all the steps to make computer chips, but they never realized what the side-effects were to themselves or the workers.

"And I think they're still not aware of it, although they're obviously more aware of it."

Callahan said he has never filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) "because I didn't understand what the rules were."

He also doubts the federal workplace regulations set realistic exposure limits. "OSHA and other agencies determine what the levels of any given chemical are that you can safely breathe for eight hours. There are other values for what is IDLH, 'immediately dangerous to life and health.'

"But what they never thought about is that those values are set for an eight-hour work day. But at most computer chip factories you work 12 hours or more a day.

"Not only that, you're exposed to multiple chemicals during the course of a day.
"When I had chronic liver disease, I went through research for a potential lawsuit. I did a lot of research on the internet. I was in contact with industrial hygiene researchers at the University of California-Berkeley.

"They all said that [microchip tool] maintenance workers like myself had the highest levels of chemical exposures of any workers in any industry in America from the late 1970s to the early 1990s.

"By being exposed to multiple chemicals in a longer than eight-hour work day, we were served a 'toxic cocktail.' But there is no way to quantify what we were exposed to."

At times, Callahan's exposure was extremely acute, he said. "In approximately 1989, I was actually cleaning some arsenic-contaminated parts with a slurry bead blaster and the system over-pressurized and it blew a hose.

"It was supposed to be a hard-plumbed, but it was soft-plumbed. So a fitting blew up, and I was hosed from head-to-toe with arsenic slurry water. I went through urine analysis testing then and I came out fine.

"Then in 1995, I was changing a toxic gas bottle in the clean room following the normal procedure, and a co-worker decided he wanted to do something different

"Now, when you're changing these bottles, an exposure of 200 parts per million is a lethal dose. We're wearing air-line respirators and the whole nine yards.
"I'm doing the dangerous work and he decides I should do something different, and we have a little tiff. As a result of that tiff, they assign me to the arsenic bead blast room to train young technician how to clean those parts.

"They had just built a brand-new arsenic parts clean up for the implant area, and we were cleaning parts there for a number of months. Then in September 1995, some facility technicians knocked on the door and said, "˜what are you guys doing in here? There's no exhaust on this, you shouldn't even be in here."

"We evacuated the room, and I started looking into the situation. It turns out I uncovered the safety sign-off sheets. Whenever Intel installs a machine, or builds a parts cleaning room, they go through a three-level safety sign-off.

"As part of safety level two, whenever you are using toxic chemicals and you have an exhaust system, you are supposed to have visible and audible alarms in case of exhaust failure so you know to evacuate.

"They had signed off on those sheets that they had installed those alarms in that room, and they didn't. So I took it to corporate EHS [Environment and Health Safety].

"At about the same time, I was taken into a meeting with the manufacturing manager, Gary Hensley, my supervisor and a site safety manager. At that time I was a grade 57 tech specialist, which is the highest level you can be as a technician.

"I was told by Mr. Hensley, verbatim, "˜Techs at your grade level should cover this up and just go fix the issue."

"There were five other people involved, and there were actually previous safety incidents in that new room that we didn't even know about," Callahan continued. "So I told Mr. Hensley quite frankly, "˜Here's the problem. Here are three solutions. If I wasn't wanting to play ball, you'd be talking to an attorney right now, because you guys screwed up huge."

"The site safety manager awarded me for coming forward with this; my supervisor later pretty much punished me for it, and Gary Hensley just screamed at me, that I should just cover it up"

He cited another run-in with managers over worker safety in the late 1990s. "From 1998 to 2003 I worked in automation, which is all the robots that move the product around the factory. The only chemical I worked with then was isopropyl alcohol, which we used to wipe down machines, and I breathed tons of it.

"That's why I think my liver enzymes never corrected themselves until I left Intel."

"When I joined that group, within the first day, the contractors I worked with were violating electrical safety. They were working live electrical circuits with no safety training and without proper equipment. They refused to wear safety equipment."

Callahan said he pointed the problem out to managers. "I was told at that point, '˜you should be happy you have a job and you should keep your mouth shut.' My Intel manager told me that"

Callahan said around 2002, Intel began installing "huge robotic stockers that weighed roughly 4,000 pounds and moved 90 inches a second.

"You're not supposed to be inside the machine when they're moving because you could get killed," he explained. "But I caught the vendors working inside them energized, putting their life and limb at risk. I went to them and said, '˜Everybody out of the pool, you can't do this."

"They would go to the managers and say '˜He's a bad team player. I'm the safety team leader, but I'm getting written warnings for bringing up the issues."

He said the situation got worse when people installed high-voltage tools without labeling the electrical cables. "That's a direct violation of corporate safety level one," Callahan pointed out. "I went to my supervisors and managers and said, '˜I know you're trying to meet a deadline, but you cannot do this. You can't release a machine for us to work on without labeling the electrical panels."

"I basically couldn't get anybody on the site to listen to me, so my supervisor said to close the issue. I took it to corporate safety, and after eight months of attempted meetings, they got everybody in a room and determined that they were actually wrong and I was right. They had to start labeling the panels.

"After that, the inquisition started." Callahan said he was subject to constant harassment and fault-finding which he considered retaliation.

Although he was subjected to several written warnings about his work, Callahan pointed out that over his 18 year career at Intel, "I had at least three or four corporate-level awards, a half-dozen site-level awards, I mean, I was recognized as an outstanding employee, but then every time I would bring up an issue, I would get dinged; so it was this merry-go-round from hell."

Callahan was asked whether he was aware of any incidents inside the plant that would have health consequences to nearby residents. He replied: "I'm aware that if the people working there do poor maintenance on the [acid gas] scrubbers or other equipment, then chemicals will be released. It has happened."

He related a situation in 1998 when he worked for a corporate level installation team on Fab 11. "When I joined that group I realized they weren't doing the proper leak-checking on the pumps that we pump toxic chemicals through.

"I went to the managers and asked '˜Why aren't you doing a complete leak-check for the whole system before you introduce chemicals to the machine?"

" had so many flippant answers like, '˜Well, we can't possibly train these guys on how to leak-check,' or 'We don't have this or that equipment."

He said he insisted, pointing out that "If you don't do it, you can expose facility workers and people who work downstairs to chemicals.

"In the best case scenario, if it's a small leak, the chemicals that you're pumping will mix with air because of the leak and cause the pump to degrade in performance, and you'll actually start scrapping wafers. Your product will suffer."

"Worst case: people get hurt; best case: you scrap wafers that cost millions and millions of dollars."

"But nobody would listen to me. During that time frame, people who worked on the machine next to me turned on the gas and people who were down next to the pumps got exposed to chemicals [and] went to the hospital."

As a result, Callahan said, an emergency meeting was held. "I said 'This is what I'm talking about. If you leak-check everything you can preclude that from happening."

He said he then essentially wrote Intel's leak-check procedure, although he was never given credit for it.

"They started leak-checking after the fact," he stressed. "I don't know if that kind of problem could directly affect the community, but it definitely affects people there."

He summed up by noting, "Intel's public relations people come out and say they're deeply concerned about the community. But if they're not concerned about exposing their own employees, I don't think they're deeply concerned about the community."

A Third Whistleblower Comes Forward

2007-12-16T12:02:00.000-08:00

Following is an except from an article in the Corrales Comment about the Agency for Toxic Substance Disease Registry (ATSDR) meetings held in Corrales and Rio Rancho in November 2007 to report to the public regarding its two-year study of Intel in the area:

At the Rio Rancho session, a third former Intel employee spoke out about exposures to toxins from the Rio Rancho plant.

Patrick Callahan, who said he was harassed into resigning from Intel in 2005 after persistently complaining about safety concerns, claimed Intel officials in Rio Rancho have falsified documents about chemical exposures.

"I actually worked at Intel for 18 years," Callahan said. "I was exposed to arsenic and I don't know how many chemicals for 25 years, 18 of which were at Intel, and I survived chronic liver disease.

"I have a small son, which is why I'm here: I'm concerned about the community."

Callahan said he was forced to resign in 2005 because he complained about chemical safety issues and failures to take corrective measures. He said he instituted a legal action against Intel which resulted in a monetary settlement.

"I have seen them falsify safety reports when I worked there. I've been harassed by management over OSHA violations there. I went through so much hell with that company that I lost weight mysteriously.

"I went through liver biopsies, and every test known to man, and they couldn't figure it out. But six months after removing myself from working around [Intel] solvents and chemicals, I felt fine.

"All these years when I was working at Intel, and reading about people feeling sick in Corrales, I was always thinking, 'yeah, that's public knowledge, but what about the workers in the plant? We're breathing ten times the chemicals that anyone living close to Intel in Corrales or Rio Rancho is breathing.'

"You know, I did that job for 25 years, so I understand the chemicals Intel is using, I understand the safety procedures they put in place, and their capabilities, but also their finding ways to make a dollar.

"So I wanted to come forward and tell my story for the first time. Most people who work at Intel won't talk about it."

One of the ATSDR officials said she would like to speak to him in more detail after the meeting.

Later in the meeting, Callahan said his superiors would blame diesel trucks for certain heavy chemical odors at Intel. "I think they were coming from our [acid gas] scrubbers, but my supervisor said, 'Oh, it's just diesel trucks delivering materials...' It wasn't diesel trucks; I know what a diesel odor is. There are a lot of good engineers there, a lot of good people who will falsify documents to make them look good."

In a subsequent interview, Corrales Comment asked Callahan to be more explicit about his allegations of falsified documents. He referred to an incident in September 1995 when an industrial safety check list was filled in to show that "visible and audible alarms" were installed for an arsenic blasting room when they were not. "I uncovered the safety sign-off sheets that they had installed those alarms in the room, and they didn't."

In a similar vein, he said he worked in a robotic manufacturing room from 1998 to 2003 when contractors for Intel "were violating electrical safety" procedures. "I was told at that point, 'You should be happy you have a job and you should keep your mouth shut.' My Intel manager told me that."

He said he eventually became the team leader and certifier for control of hazardous energy for that robotics unit. He said he was aware of safety check documents that incorrectly indicated proper procedures were in place.

"My supervisor said to close the issue. So I took it to corporate safety, and after eight months of attempted meetings, they got everybody in a room and determined they were actually wrong and I was right, and they had to start labeling the [electrical] panels.

"After that, the inquisition started." Callahan said, referring to the alleged harassment that led to his resignation and initiation of legal action against Intel.

Additional allegations by Callahan and results of his exposure to Intel toxins will be published in a later issue [of the Corrales Comment].

The Truth About Green Zia

2007-09-18T09:57:00.000-07:00

Shortly after the debate posted below, a judge and examiner for the Green Zia Award weighed in:

"I have been an examiner for Green Zia since its inception, and Intel was the most controversial award, as they had very little physical proof of P2 (pollution prevention). Their application was written very well. I have examined LANL, General Electric, McKinley Paper, and many other applications, but Intel was the most controversial of all because they had few physical examples of excellent P2 efforts."

"Green Zia was supposed to be about assisting companies in becoming more sustainable, and instead the types of corporations which apply do it to clean up their reputations rather than seriously commit to green changes. The Excellence level should be reserved only to obvious green companies who are providing absolute sustainable ways to conduct business. It was a mistake to grant Excellence to Intel. It takes away from the worthy Excellence award of the Durango-McKinley Paper Company. I believe most people in NM were disgusted when the NM Environment Department gave Intel an Excellence."

Green Zia Debate

2007-09-09T16:25:00.000-07:00

A sharp debate has arisen between two activist scientists regarding the Green Zia Award. John Bartlit, retired chemical engineer who nominated Intel for the award states that his aim is "to build support for its principles." He writes:

"The NM Green Zia Program for environmental improvement is patterned after the Baldridge National Quality Program for business improvement. The heart of the program, the core value, is continuous improvement. Good enough is never good enough. Merely meeting rules is never the end goal."

"Companies in the Green Zia Program pursue continuous environmental improvement. Progress is measured in lower emissions and lower use of natural resources. Needless to say, I am a strong believer in these goals."

"Intel is a successful participant in the Green Zia Awards Program. The awards given at all levels require a corporate commitment to continuous improvement. The awards also require continuing evidence of improving."

"I support Green Zia and its principles. The ideas are vital additions to regulation alone. I look for the principles to yield further improvements at Intel and elsewhere in the state."

Fred Marsh, retired chemist and member of Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water, responds:

"Mr. Bartlit recently attempted to defend his support of Green Zia Awards for Intel at a time when a large majority of the 600 respondents to the Corrales Health Survey were reporting pollution-related illnesses."

"Mr. Bartlit wrote, "progress is measured in lower emissions." These words justify why Intel should be disqualified from even being considered for such an award."

"Intel's claims of lower emissions are calculated, not measured. And on the rare occasions when actual measurements are made, such as the 4th quarter of 2003, the release of carbon tetrachloride was measured to 1.4 tons. Yet, Intel reported their calculated value of zero for the carcinogenic compound."

"When actual measurements were made on Intel property by TRC during an unusually low-production month, many toxic chemicals were found at levels as high as hundreds of times above safe level."

"Even the NM Environment Department, who gave Intel the "bust-proof" permit they demanded, cited Intel for ten violations due to Intel's systematic exclusion of RTO downtimes when actual measurements were made. (This is important because emissions are at least 20 times higher during RTO downtimes.)"

"Unlike Mr. Bartlit, I'm unwilling to accept Intel's unsupported, fictitious calculations.
Just as the IRS was unwilling to accept Intel's $600 million underpayment of its income tax. Just as Standard and Poor's exposed Intel's four-fold overstatement of its earnings in an attempt to inflate the stock price..."

"Mr. Bartlit also wrote, "The Green Zia awards given at all levels require a corporate commitment to continuous improvement." Unfortunately, Intel's commitment has been to misleading the public with phony calculations while it continues to release hazardous amounts of toxic chemicals."

"When two Intel employees tried to implement "continuous improvement" by advocating needed repairs to abatement equipment, they lost their jobs for doing so."

"Intel might qualify for a Liar's Club award for its Enron-style calculations; however, giving Intel an award for "environmental excellence: is an unusually blatant example of a political payoff."

Letter to the Editor

2007-06-24T11:41:00.000-07:00

Dear Editor:

Three years ago, secret discussions between then County Commissioner Daymon Ely and Intel executives led to the County authorizing $16 billion in industrial revenue bonds for Intel.

Ely attempted to justify that incredible gift by describing it as an investment in New Mexico's future.

Since then, Intel has committed $4 billion to build a new plant in Arizona, $2.5 billion for a new plant in China, and $1.7 billion for a plant in India. These out-of-state and foreign investments account for more than $8 billion.

Meanwhile, the number of employees at Intel's Rio Rancho facilities has dropped from a reported 5,500 last September to a recently reported 4,700.

As its Rio Rancho facilities are upgraded with new automated equipment, Intel has announced plans to fire more than 1,000 additional New Mexico employees.

Thus, since receiving Sandoval County's $16 billion IRB, Intel has cut its local work force by nearly 2,000 jobs, while adding new jobs to facilities in Arizona, China and India.

Perhaps Daymon Ely can explain how these cold, cruel facts represent the promised investment in New Mexico's future.

Intel executives must be laughing all the way to the bank when they consider the gullibility of Sandoval County Commissioners.

Fred Marsh
Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water

Residents React to the New "Special Sauce"

2007-05-14T11:32:00.000-07:00

In a PBS newscast on May 7, 2007. Intel's President/CEO Paul Otellini described a new process that will be used to manufacture Intel's new computer chip: "We've gone from silicon to hafnium. We've also put in some other secret sauce that we're not talking about yet that allows us to do this (breakthrough)."

This email from a resident who lives downwind from the Intel plant came in shortly after the newscast:

"Thanks for sending this (transcript of the PBS newscast). Hafnium, huh. Whatever they've been cooking at Intel lately has left me coughing all night, every night, even to the point of gagging. I'm getting a respite for a couple of days here in Santa Fe, and the difference is marked. I'm not coughing up gunk all night and all day, I don't have a hoarse throat. When I talk to people on the phone, they don't ask me if I've got bronchitis. Last Friday night in Corrales it smelled like they were burning tires up there: maybe they burned the "sauce."

"In a reasonable, honest world, the company would be required to obtain permission BEFORE installing new equipment that would produce different emissions that could be harmful. We know the toxic chemicals they release now have a serious impact on our health, and yet the regulators give them a pass."

A Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water (CRCAW) member asked a New Mexico Environment Department official about the new 45 nanometer process being brought up at Intel: "I was wondering if Intel has provided any information regarding the new emissions that might be generated by this process. His response was that Intel is only required to report emission changes once a year. In other words, Intel could bring up a new process and not have to report the emission changes until the following year. We also discussed the fact that in the process of bringing up a new line, Intel often has to do a lot of tuning to match in the process emissions to the local equipment including the abatement equipment. He agreed that during this process there maybe lots of emissions that are out of the norm."

History of Intel from a Neighbor's Perspective

2007-01-24T20:46:00.000-08:00

The following is excepted from a commentary written by Roberta King and published in the Corrales Comment in November 2006. Roberta built her home 33 years ago just below the fence line that separates Intel from Corrales. Here is her story:

"Back then there was no Intel. Except for Sky View Acres and a few scattered homes, the land between the Main Canal and the escarpment was open mesa land. The air was fresh and invigorating.

All of that changed once Intel became established, fired up production, and began emitting the industrial chemicals of the chip manufacturing process.

Unlike other Intel locations in the U.S., the Rio Rancho plant overlooked a village spread out along the river valley below. The hilly contours between the Rio Grande and the escarpment create pathways for ground level breezes to travel. That's a perfect setting for chemical gasses heavier than air to move along arroyos and irrigation ditches.

The emission stacks are not very tall. Consequently, the heavier-than-air emissions fall to the ground instead of dissipating and stay trapped in that level of the airshed where living creatures are breathing.

Corrales Residents for Clear Air and Water (CRCAW) came into being because residents living close to the down drafts filled with Intel's dense toxic emissions were getting splitting headaches, congested sinuses and constricted air passages. Over time, they developed itching skin rashes and other debilitating symptoms NOT EXPERIENCED WHEN THEY WERE IN OTHER AIRSHEDS.

In those early days, these health conditions appeared in connection with an intense, strong, heavy dosage of acetone (also found in fingernail polish remover). You know it well.

Affected residents gathered together to see what they could learn about what was happening to them healthwise. The Village of Corrales had a generous population of scientists, chemists, hydrologists, engineers, medical professionals, computer analysts and others who were challenged to investigate and learn all they could about what was coming from Intel's stacks and how those chemicals affect the health of living creatures.

CRCAW crafted a Mission Statement in 1993 which can be found on page 207 in Barbara Rockwell's book, Boiling Frogs: Intel vs the Village. The statement reads: "Our mission is to educate the community on Right to Know issues, to encourage Intel to be a good corporate neighbor by releasing information to the public and by adopting first class, state-of-the-art emissions controls in the short run and reduction and/or substitution of toxic chemicals in the long run."

To that end, several of us have participated in the original Citizen Advisory Panel (CAP) paid for by toxic emissions and not as CRCAW spokespersons.

Intel's CAP was mediated by Pat Delbridge of Delbridge Associates of Canada. We have attended numerous community meetings held by Intel to supposedly interface with the community, and now attend Community Environmental Working Group (CEWG) meetings which are open to the public. You can attend too. We speak as individuals affected and I know for a fact that chemicals used Intel's manufacturing process are getting into the tissues of living creaatures. My dog's lung tissue was analyzed by Accu-Chem Laboratory and showed 50 parts per billion (ppb) of Toluene, 14 ppb of Ethylbenzenes and 18 ppb of N-Hexane. The postmorten report indicated adenocarcinomas in epithelial cells of her lungs, not related any other organ in her body. The nature of them suggests to me they could be caused by breathing silica which could have caused so many nodules. Silica is a particulaate Intel is permitted to emit. (You can read Ellie's story and the reports at CRCAW's link at www.faceintel.com).

Another dog in the neighborhood was tested by the same lab when she died with traces of Ethylbenzene, M.P-Xylenes and O-Xylene. If these chemicals are getting into the lung tissues of dogs, might they also be getting into our lungs as we breathe the air surrounding Intel?

Intel is a political football in the hands of the Governor and his appointees. NONE OF THEM will say anything against the toxic emissions. They act as if such health hazards did not exist.

The emperor is loudly proclaiming "see how beautifully green my environmental suit is!" And the people know how many hours Intel employees have contributed to community needs and how much money has been given in the name of Intel to worthy projects. Intel does so much good they couldn't possibly be polluting the air! Look at all they do for the environment!

But the people ignore what is seen coming out of the stacks, settling over the Village and nearby terrain. The reality is that "the emperor has no clothes!"

Eyes have they, but they choose not to see.

A Neighbor's Report to the Environment Department

2007-01-07T13:17:00.000-08:00

Here's a typical report sent in by one of Intel's neighbors on almost a daily basis. This is a company that was allowed by the State of New Mexico to locate in a residential neighborhood with NO Environmental Impact Study ever done.

Robert,
Friday, December 22, 2006, 7:30 p.m.
Wind: Calm with burning fumes saturating the atmosphere. Steam can be seen from Loma Larga as well as from our backyard. We have noticed these plumes for several nights and during the snow storms in the past days and week. You would think the air would clear while it was snowing but that's not the case.

Tonight, a Windover neighbor called to inquire about what's happening. The smoky fumes came into their bedroom while they opened the window for a very short time. She and her husband experienced a burning sensation in the throat with coughing/choking.

I too had a reaction to something coming in through the vents. Felt groggy and had throat and sinus irritation. My husband who was in bed, got up to see what the problem was and fell. It took me a long time to get him off the floor because of the extreme weakness in his legs. I would like an answer as to what is in the atmosphere around here and what Intel is doing.

I have asked Frank Gallegos for the name/names of the bacteria they admit is in those cooling towers. So far, no answer. I doubt if Intel will disclose it.

We do have a right to know what we are being forced to breathe.

Please inquire yourself or find someone else to do the research regarding these matters.
Thanks,
Joy

New Analysis Shows Risk in Intel Silica Dust

2006-10-16T10:53:00.000-07:00

From the Corrales Comment of 9/23/06: Scientific analysis of Intel's claim that it does not release a potentially lethal form of silica (suspected in the deaths of two Corrales residents) concludes that Intel is probably wrong.

Contradicting an oft-repeated assertion by Intel officials, Los Alamos Air quality specialist serving on Intel's Community Environmental Working Group has reported that Intel's thermal oxidizers (incinerators) do create airborne crystalline silica when the industrial chemical hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) is burned.

Mike Williams, serving on Intel's committee as a representative of New Mexicans for Clean Air and Water, disagrees with Intel's most recent risk assessment which states flatly that the microchip maker releases no crystalline silica.

No one disputes that Intel releases silica particulate into the air when it routinely burns HMDS as a pollution abatement measure. But Intel has maintained it only emits amorphous-shaped silica.

There's a major public health distinction between the two forms. When people breath in the round-cornered amorphous silica, the tiny particles generally get exhaled right back out.

But with the sharp-edged crystalline form, the particles tend to lodge in the lungs creating much increased risk for lung cancer and lung fibrosis.

Silica emissions from Intel were suspected as a cause of death of former Village Councillor Larry Vigil in 2001. He died of pulmonary fibrosis; doctors listed its cause as unknown. Vigil himself, a long-time resident below Intel, was convinced his lung disease was caused by Intel's emissions.

A second Corrales resident who lived even closer to Intel also died from lung fibrosis a few months later.

Intel's reports to the N.M. Environment Department for that period show the microchip maker was releasing an average of 11 tons a year of silica particulate into the air.

The question arose, then, as to how much of a health threat the silica emissions are, and that depended largely on whether the particles going into the air over Corrales are in amorphous or crystalline form.

As corporate officials had done in the past when villagers reported health problems from Intel's air pollution, they hired a consultant to reassure the public that Intel's operations did not constitute a significant health threat.

Silica emissions were part of the new risk assessment produced for Intel by the Colorado-based Environmental Resources Management (ERM) in 2005.

Assurances that the silica released is amorphous and not crystalline are based on Intel's claim that the heat in the oxidizers that burn HMDS is not sufficient to produce the crystalline form.

ERM's toxicity tables for the risk assessment show that crystalline silica is produced at heat "above 1000 degrees to over 1400 degrees."

An Intel-Rio Rancho webpage displays a report, "Durr Thermal Oxidizer Research" dated April 27, 2004, stating that the combustion chamber temperature in the incinerators here is 1,400 degrees F.

Even so, ERM states categorically that "Intel does not emit crystalline silicon dioxide," without citing evidence.

ERM's toxicological profiles section, Appendix D of the 2005 risk assessment, notes that "Certain forms of silica are known to be more toxic than others," particularly the crystalline form. It points out that crystalline silica "may cause coughing, dyspnea (trouble breathing) and fibrosis in humans, and is considered to have twice the toxicity as that of other forms of silica in causing silicosis."

Intel is allowed by state permit to release to the air up to 14.2 tons of silica particulate each year. Reported emissions have been as high as 12.2 tons per year.

In an interview this summer, Williams said he had examined the apparent inconsistency in Intel's data about the effect of the incinerator's heat on HMDS.

He phrased the questions this way: "ERM states that no crystalline silicon will be formed in the thermal oxidizer although oxidizer temperatures are 1400 degrees and crystalline silica forms at 1000 to 1400 degrees."

Furthermore, "The ERM risk assessment uses a ratio of two between toxicities of amorphous and crystalline silicon, while the actual values should be about 500," Williams said.

The Los Alamos scientist said his research indicated that crystalline silica is 100 to 500 times more dangerous.

As to whether Intel's incinerators produce crystalline silica, Williams concluded they probably do: "Available information suggests that the risk assessment's treatment of crystalline silica is inadequate. The contention that no crystalline silica is emitted is unsupported and quite possibly wrong."

He based that finding on the incinerator manufacturer's data and the properties of silicon dioxide: "Combustion at low temperatures (less than 700 degrees Centigrade (1292 Fahrenheit) gives no crystalline silica, but 800 degrees C (1472 F) can produce crystalline silica. Sustained temperatures above 750 C (1382 degrees F) lead to a significant quantity of crystalline silica in ash in other contexts," he pointed out.

He noted that Intel has claimed actual tests of silica from the incinerators show it to be amorphous, rather than crystalline.

However, that test methodology has been called into question. The silica samples tested were said to have been scraped from parts of the incinerators rather than taken from the air leaving the incinerators.

A new initiative by the Community Envirornmental Working Group, on which Williams serves, is expected to use silica sampling and testing as a pilot study for a "Citizen Protocol" to independently verify testing carried out on Intel's behalf.

A Well Kept Secret

2006-09-12T09:59:00.000-07:00

Here's yet another letter to the editor that will probably not be published. Public officials and local press seem to be determined to keep this important issue a secret: Postcript: The letter was published but buried in the Rio Rancho edition, not the main Albuquerque edition.

Re the editorial in the Sunday Journal: "State Voters Tuning in to Water, Energy Issues," you state "a whopping 85 percent of survey respondents were worried about long-term water supplies." Very few people are aware that Intel uses anywhere from 1.5 to 3 billion gallons each and every year out of our declining aquifer.

This extravagant use is completely avoidable. In 2001, a new clean and cheap method of producing computer chips using super critical carbon dioxide was invented at Los Alamos Labs. This new process reduces water use by as much as 95% and eliminates toxic chemicals. Along with other chipmakers like IBM, Intel was headed towards this next stop on the semiconductor roadmap in 2003.

But last year at a meeting in Corrales, Intel executives said that even though they had achieved equivalent results in making chips in trials with the new method, they plan to go on with the old "wet" method until 2010, if then. That's five more years of a minimum of 7 billion gallons to as much as 15 billion gallons of water gone that could have been conserved.

The editorial noted that "nearly three-quarters of those polled wanted state and local governments to put strong conservation measures in place." If our esteemed Governor can fly to the Sudan to negotiate, why can't he negotiate right here at home to help save our most precious resource."

Drought? What Drought?

2006-06-25T16:33:00.000-07:00

Satire found in the letters to the editor page of the Albuquerque Journal:

Some are saying we are heading into a severe drought and that we ought to conserve water. I say bull. There is no drought. This is just something cooked up by the water companies to get us to pay more dollars for less water.

Think about it. If there were really a problem with lack of water, then Intel would not be allowed to use three to eight million gallons a day from the aquifer to make computer chips. Intel is an environmentally responsible company that cares deeply about the community and if there is a shortage of water, they will be the first to cut back: Honest.

They would convert to the Super-Critical Carbon Dioxide manufacturing system developed at Los Alamos Labs, which would then cut their water use by 95 percent if there really were a water shortage. But as long as water is plentiful, Intel is going to keep using it. And what's good for Intel is good for the community.

Don't let the water company push you around. Don't use less water. Use more. Water your lawn twice a day, not once every other day. Wash your SUV as often as you want, and if a little water runs into the gutter, so what?

Enjoy those long showers and don't worry abour running the dishwasher and washing machine if they are only half full. Water is our God-given right, and if God did not want us to use water, he would not have given us the faucet.

Gary Priester
Placitas

Boiling Frogs Public Radio Interview

2006-06-23T09:15:00.000-07:00

Listen to an hour-long interview of Barbara Rockwell and Roberta King on KUNM radio's Women's Focus hosted by Carol Boss on the following link:

http://www.abquail.com/BoilingFrogs/PlayInterview.html

Ruthless Business Practices

2006-05-30T08:52:00.000-07:00

In "Boiling Frogs - Intel vs. the Village" I wrote about Intel's ruthless business practices around the world. Recently, I received the following email from a businessman in Germany who is the victim of an Intel takeover. At his request, I will not reveal his name:

"I was founder and shareholder of a company which was acquired 2001 by big Intel. Our "honeymoon" lasted just a few months. All good and great promises in the beginning made place for inhuman conditions. After Intel's "patent harvest" in our company and a change in management, we became victim of what they call "divestiture." They've sold us off to our toughest competitor. From a formerly blooming company with 55 highly motivated and enthusiastic employees, it went down to a few people. Their job is to prepare everything for a soon coming funeral.
My initial anger turned into positive activity. I left the company in June 2003 and represent 47 former employees in a law suit against Intel (Intel Deutschland GmbH and Intel Corporation). We believe that it was not correct that Intel has taken away our sotck options, which we earned during our 2 1/2 years with Intel and which were also part of the agreement.
I look forward to reading your book, but you gave me already now further motivation to follow the stony path of that law suit.

Intel Emission Factors: Why Should You Care?

2006-04-11T20:45:00.000-07:00

Published in response to a recent "open house" meeting held my the NM Environment Department upon its rubber-stamping of yet another reduction in Intel emission factors. Written by Barbara Rockwell, Martha Egan and Fred Marsh:

Instead of requiring Intel to actually measure the toxic emissions they release into the air we breathe, the New Mexico Envirnoment Department (NMED) allows Intel to calculate their emissions. One part of this calculation is an "emission factor" that supposedly provides a reasonable estimate of what is actually released.

Although NMED has granted every Intel request, Intel has never provided any experimental evidence to support these factors, nor has NMED ever requested such supporting evidence, or made any attempt to have them independently verified.

NMED may trust Intel, but we don't. Nor does the Internal Revenue Service, which found Intel had underpaid its 2000 income tax by $600 million. Nor does Standard & Poores, the highly respected financial institution that reported Intel had overstated its earnings for 2001 by a factor of four. When Intel has been caught cheating in such major ways with figures that can be independently checked, why should we believe their figures that cannot be checked?

NMED recently allowed Intel to revise its numbers, changing the emission factors for 32 chemicals, with eight of these changed to zero. This means that Intel will report zero emissions, no matter how much of a chemical they actually emit to our airshed. Zero times any amount equals zero.

For example, when Intel measured the release of 1.4 tons of carbon tetrachloride, a known carcinogen, from just one of its many scrubbers during the fourth quarter of 2003, they used their phony emission factor of zero for this toxic chemical to calculate and report zero release in spite of the hard evidence that they were releasing multi-ton quantities of carbon tetrachloride.

Jim Shively, after his retirement from NMED as a senior permit engineer engineer, wrote to NMED Secretary Ron Curry: "The Intel permit (No. 325M9) is a 'sham' based on an EPA memo dated June 13, 1989, and the process that produced the permit was a farce. The permit is impractical and unenforceable."

This has been repeated and emphasized many times and by many people during the permit review process and since. Intel's emission factors have never been independently validated.

Without actual, continuous measurements, neither Intel nor NMED can know what is actually being released. Unfortunately, that is exactly what Intel wants. For political reasons, NMED continues to be far more concerned with protecting Intel than they are with protecting public health and the environment.

Don't be fooled by Intel's bust-proof permit. Demand reality: demand continuous emissions monitoring with data available online in real-time for public review. It's cheap and easy to do. Intel could use a tiny portion of its $16 billion gift from Sandoval Counth to pay for this.

What have you got to hide, Intel."

Intel Donates to Corrales Recreation Center

2006-02-26T14:39:00.000-08:00

This is the headline on an article that appeared in local papers to announce that Intel had donated $30,000 to the Corrales Recreation Center for tennis and basketball courts. The article ended with this bit of black humor: "Intel has recommended that part of its donation be used to fund recycle bins at the center and on the playing fields to enhance awareness of our responsibility to the environment."
Here's some insight into Intel's "generous donations:"
"In February 2000, Jeff Radford visited Belen (Costa Rica) and was given a tour of the town's air monitoring site, which would be paid for my municipal funds and with equipment paid for by the Japanese government. Not surprisingly, Intel had been given federal tax exemptions to locate there, but took the town to court when Belen imposed its own municipal tax. The mayor's position was upheld in court. Intel responded by stopping all donations to local charitable causes. Alvarado told the Comment: "I have concluded that the principle reason Intel is so opposed to paying taxes is that they want to donate to specific projects that earn them good will. They want the appearance of being very generous, but without the obligations." Boiling Frogs - Intel vs. The Village, pg. 159
Mayor Alvarado could have added that Intel wants the appearance of being environmentally responsible without the actual obligation - while they're out to "enhance awareness of environmental responsibility" with recycle bins, they're spewing deadly chemicals into the air these recyclers are breathing at the Rec Center.

Chinatown - New Mexico Style

2006-01-24T10:22:00.000-08:00

Intel is taking three billion gallons of water out of the declining Rio Grande aquifer each and every year - and on top of that, New Mexico is in a serious years-long drought. How long can this go on?
There is an answer - and that is Intel going to the new clean SCORR method invented at Los Alamos National labs in 2001 that would use 95% less water. Intel has pushed this off until at least 2010, the latest excuse being that it would cost from $100 to $200 million to convert from their current toxic, water-wasting technology. Intel expects to modify and upgrade their processes about every 18 months because their products change so frequently. The $200 million figure they quote to convert represents around 1.25% of the $16 billion industrial revenue bond (RIB) that Intel was granted last year by Sandoval County where their Rio Rancho flagship plant resides. The conversion to the clean method would easily and cheaply fit into one of their major upgrades. Intel could do it if they wanted to - and if we had a State government with the courage and commonsense to demand it.

2006-01-17T22:30:00.000-08:00

Ignoring Science on Clean Air

2006-01-17T20:55:00.000-08:00

New York Times, January 17, 2006: Every five years, the Clean Air Act requires the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency to revise federal air quality standards for smog and soot. It is a stressful moment. When Carol Browner, President Bill Clinton's administraator, tightened standards in 1997, industry and its friends in Congess erupted in protest, and a federal appeals court said the rules were unconstitutional. The regulations did not actually take effect until Justice Antonin Scalia ruled in 2001 that Ms. Browner had the right to issue them and had done so properly.

Now it is the turn of Stephen Johnson at the EPA, only this time it is the scientists and environmentalists who are upset, and not without reason. Last month, Mr. Johnson proposed new rules governing fine particulate matter, known as soot. The most dangerous of these are microscopic specks that can cause significant inflammation and arterial damage in the bloodstream and the lungs.

At best, Mr. Johnson's proposed rules represent only a modest tightening of the Browner rules - despite considerable additional researchover the last few years, some 2,000 studies altogether, expanding the list of adverse health effects associated with fine particles (especially among children) and, collectively, pointing to the need for stronger standards.

Industry has complained.... for the full story, visit:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/17/opinion/17tue3.html?th&emc=th

Dismantling the Public's Right to Know

2006-01-14T14:34:00.000-08:00

"Under the Bush administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is slowly dismantling its flagship environemtnal information tool - the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI). The program has been protected and improved for over the last 15 years, since it was put in place during the Reagan administration. The TRI database enables the public to learn about the envirnomental risks in our workplaces and communities by providing informtion about hundreds of toxic chemiclas relased into the environment. Moreover, the TRI program has served as a constant example of the vital role information plays in a democracy, and the importance of the public's right to know. Unfortunately, the program's success has made it a target for those that seek to reduce corporate oversight and accountability." Source: OMB Watch

See the full report at DocuTicker: www.docuticker.com/2006/01/dismantling-publics-right-to-know.html

"We have no idea what's coming out of that plant...." Quote from a New Mexico Environment Department official who must go unnamed, January 2006

Excerpt from Fred Marsh's Review of "Boiling Frogs"

2006-01-10T21:14:00.000-08:00

"Intel is allowed to release chemicals far more lethal than phosgene, more lethal even than methyl isocyonate that killed 4,000 and hospitalized 50,000 in Bhopal, India."

A Nation of Lab Rats - Reversing the Politics of Pollution

2006-01-09T21:08:00.000-08:00

Excepted from the December 14 edition of Crosswinds Weekly, Carolyn Raffensperger, "perhaps the most creative and insightful explorer of the relationships among our legal system, public policy, public health and the environment. Carolyn is an environmental lawyer and the executive director of the Science and Environmental Health Network, which is a vitally important national consortium of environmental organizations dedicated to the use of science in the public interest" (Kenny Ausubel)

The Foresight Principle
So, what is this precautionary principle? It's the foresight principle. It's the foreaction principle. It's the grandmother principle. It's the principle that says, "We are going to look out for future generations for their well-being and their sanity'...One version of the precautionary principle says, "When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken, even if some cause-and-effect relationships have not been fully established scientifically.'...We know what these pesticides do to rats. Do we want to do this to our children? No. We know what we did by ignoring lead. We knew what would happen when we ignored asbestos. I could go on down the line. Heed early warnings ...
Reverse the Burden of Proof
Then let's reverse the burden of proof. Do you know what happened to places like Love Canal? Business and government would say, "oh, you're fine. There's no problem. It's not making you sick." The residents would say, "We've got a problem. This is not good for us. This is not good for our health. Business and government said, "Prove it. You prove that this is toxic. You prove that it's doing harm." Business didn't even test it. They didn't even test their chemicals when they said, "There's no evidence that it causes problems." So we need to reverse the burden of proof. I should not have the responsibility of proving that your chemical or genetically modified organism is causing me harm if you haven't even tested it. If you don't know, how come I have to know? Your ignorance is not my problem. But in many cases, it has turned out to be my problem.
What it means is giving the benefit of the doubt to human health and the environment. It means giving the benefit of the doubt to the child's brain that's in the mother's womb..."

Testimony given by Corrales resident Carol Merrill at the June 2003 Task Force meeting:
"Time and again, what I read was, 'No test data available.' I would like to know, seriously, why Intel is not required to offer proof, absolute proof, that the chemicals they are using are harmless. Why am I required to prove that they have harmed me and my family?" Boiling Frogs, pg. 274

The Book Is Coming Out

2005-12-21T19:50:00.000-08:00

My book "Boiling Frogs - Intel vs. the Village" will come out in mid-January. I am creating this blog to link with the URL on the back cover of the book so that readers can make comments. I will update the blog on a regular basis with breaking stories about Intel and Corrales.