"Joe Robertson, a Navy veteran from Montana, was 78 when he was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $130,000 in restitution through deductions from his Social Security checks. His crime?"
After the announcement by the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday rolling back what has been called federal overreach by former President Obama’s Waters of the U.S. rule, Environment Montana issued a press release condemning the decision.
Monies obtained for damages to natural resources from years of pollution at the Smurfit Stone mill site in Frenchtown will be split between a group of Trustees, before the actual cleanup costs have been determined.
The Montana Department of Justice Natural Resource Damage Program issued a press release on Monday stating that damages at the Smurfit Stone Frenchtown mill site will be the subject of a ‘pre-assessment screen’.
The federal on-scene coordinator with the Environmental Protection Agency’s Emergency Response Unit, Marty McComb and one other EPA official are in Missoula to test the berms and the toxins at the former Smurfit-Stone mill site
While the floods of 2018 have hit and retreated from their highest levels in a hundred years, another danger buried for over half a century near the former Smurfit mill site sits waiting.
One of the most significant effects of the Clark Fork River flooding is the danger of toxic materials stored for the last half-century in the old Smurfit settling ponds that are separated from the swollen river by only a series of earthen berms, being released into the river.
A new report released this week by the Environment Montana Research and Policy Center states that a majority of Montana schools tested found ‘unsafe levels of lead in drinking water’.