Sierra Club Ads Target Bush, Toxic Waste

[Feanorcurufinwe]

AP - The Sierra Club (news - web sites) has launched a new series of ads charging the Bush administration with failing to make corporations clean up abandoned toxic waste sites. The ads, running on television or radio in four cities, blame Bush for not supporting reinstatement of the so-called "polluter pays" tax that funded expensive cleanup of federal Superfund sites. The tax levied on the manufacturers of toxic chemicals expired in 1995 and the Superfund, which boasted $3.6 billion in reserve at its peak, ran out of money last year.

Sierra Club spokeswoman Annie Strickler said that forces ordinary taxpayers — not polluters — to foot the bill for cleaning up some of the worst toxic waste sites. There are nearly 1,300 Superfund National Priority sites in the United States. "The advertising is just an effort to make people more aware of these Bush administration policies that threaten their health and safety," Strickler said. "If President Bush supported the polluter pays principle, we could get the money back into this polluter trust fund and the money wouldn't be coming from taxpayer revenues," she said.

Television ads began running Monday in Philadelphia, Detroit and Tampa, Fla., and a radio ad debuted Tuesday in Omaha, Neb. The ads highlight several toxic waste cleanup sites: the former Velsicol Chemical Co. plant site in St. Louis, Mich.; the Franklin Slag Pile in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia; the Coronet Industries plant site in Plant City, Fla.; and the lead contamination site in eastern Omaha.

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The Sierra Club, the nation's largest and oldest environmental organization, ran ads earlier this year before Bush's annual State of the Union address, highlighting what it claims is Bush's dismal record on policies involving toxic mercury. The environmental group also spent at least $350,000 on ads last year in New Hampshire, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, Nevada and Nebraska criticizing Bush's environmental record.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=ap/sierra_club_ads

You can join the Sierra Club for as little as $25. http://www.sierraclub.org/membership

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[TomSeaverr]

1. Okay why not run the ads in Nevada

Isn't that where they dump crap

[Feanorcurufinwe]

2. There are Superfund sites everywhere

my state, Montana, has lots, including the largest.

[rasputin1952]

3. As a member of the Sierra Club...

I know that the money only goes so far, and the Club has chosen these sites as some of the more obvious ones that will draw attention to areas that are in play for the election.

O8)