REAL WORLD EVENT DISCUSSIONS

Freedom Industries Files For Bankruptcy; Wants To Shift Cost Of Spill To Taxpayers

POSTED BY: NIKI2
UPDATED: Tuesday, January 21, 2014 09:27
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Sunday, January 19, 2014 9:38 AM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


Freedom Industries has filed a petition for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. And that’s not even the worst of it. The company that is trying to pass the cost of a chemical spill onto the taxpayers, has not paid its own taxes in years. ( http://wvrecord.com/news/265453-facing-water-spill-suits-freedom-indus
tries-files-for-bankruptcy
)
Quote:

Freedom Industries Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Friday in U.S. District Court in Charleston. The petition, which was signed by the Freedom president Gary Southern, estimates the company’s debt at $10 million or less.

The papers also say Freedom owes more than $3.5 million to debtors. At the top of that list are FloMin Coal Inc. of Altanta ($648,221) and Silverlake Holding of Evansville, Ind., ($615,954). The documents also show that Freedom Industries owes more than $2.4 million in unpaid taxes to the Internal Revenue Service dating back to 2000. http://wvrecord.com/news/265453-facing-water-spill-suits-freedom-indus
tries-files-for-bankruptcy



Capitalism at it's best: Run a shoddy company, don't pay your bills, don't pay your taxes, and when you destroy an ecosystem, file bankruptcy (and no doubt open shop somewhere else; under US bankruptcy laws, the company could reorganize and continue to do business, after passing the burden of the cost of this chemical spill onto the public.). You betcha!

Both WV Gov. Tomblin and President Obama declared a state of emergency in WV, allowing for state and federal dollars to flow freely to the area. The WV National Guard, WV Bureau of Public Health, WV DEP, FEMA, the US Corps of Engineers and the US Department of Homeland Security are just a few of the agencies that have been called upon to spend tax dollars, to help deal with the chemical spill.

There are also questions surfacing about whether the company was operating in the parameters of the law. The US Chemical Safety and Hazards Investigation Board and the Occupational Safety and Health Information Board are also investigating the chemical spill.
Quote:

The site of a West Virginia chemical spill that contaminated the water supply for 300,000 people operated largely outside government oversight, highlighting gaps in regulations and prompting questions on whether local communities have a firm grasp on potential threats to drinking water.

The storage facility owned by Freedom Industries Inc. on the banks of the Elk River was subject to almost no state and local monitoring, interviews and records show. The industrial chemical that leaked into the river, 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, isn't closely tracked by federal programs. A state regulator had said earlier that, before last week's spill, environmental inspectors hadn't visited the site since 1991. On Monday, the state said it had located another inspection from 2002 related to a remediation project done by the site's previous owner.

The company complied with one of the few mandates that applies to its operation: Nearly a year ago, it gave the West Virginia Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management a list of chemicals with "immediate (acute) hazards," which is required annually under federal law. MCHM was among them.

It was unclear what was done with that information. Laura Jordan, a spokeswoman for West Virginia American Water Co., which operates the complex distribution system with 1,700 miles of pipes, said officials there weren't aware of the document, known as a Tier Two Emergency and Hazardous Chemical Inventory. Mr. Blackwood of the local emergency group said he wasn't aware a list existed.

The site wasn't subject to much state regulation because it was used primarily for storage rather than manufacturing or processing. It had one state permit, to send storm runoff into the Elk River, which officials described as "routine."

"It falls between the regulatory acts," said James Salzman, an environmental law professor at Duke University who wrote a recent book about drinking water. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303819704579317062
273564766



The American Way...and gawd knows, we have far too many regulations "stifling" business...

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Sunday, January 19, 2014 12:15 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


That massive explosion in Texas which killed 15 people and injured 160 occurred under very much the same anti-government attitude: Don't write regulations, and if you have them don't enforce them, because otherwise you'll be anti-business. Because, as everyone knows, businesses "do the right thing"; and are very careful of their employees and the towns and larger environment in which they operate. Regulations just slow things down and make business more expensive and don't do any good at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Fertilizer_Company_explosion


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Monday, January 20, 2014 11:45 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:


The American Way...




Yep.

Quote:

Solyndra was a manufacturer of cylindrical panels of copper indium gallium selenide (CIGS) thin-film solar cells based in Fremont, California. Although the company was once touted for its unusual technology, plummeting silicon prices led to the company's being unable to compete with more conventional solar panels.[1] On 1 September 2011, the company ceased all business activity, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and laid off all employees, costing taxpayers over $500 million.[2][3] The company is also being sued by employees who were abruptly laid off.

...

Solyndra received a $535 million U.S. Energy Department loan guarantee before going bankrupt. Under the Solyndra restructuring plan, the government is projected to recoup 19 percent on $142.8 million of the loan and nothing on the remaining $385 million.[20] Additionally, Solyndra received a $25.1 million tax break from California's Alternative Energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority.[21]

The majority of Solyndra funding was provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solyndra_loan_controversy


"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Monday, January 20, 2014 12:40 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


That has absolutely, positive, fucking NOTHING to do with a company getting around regulations, not paying their taxes, poisoning the water of millions, then declaring bankruptcy and being able to go "reorganize" and open right up again under another name.

That is so apples-and-oranges, so blatantly partisan and bereft of any relevance to the issue at hand, that once again, Geezer dips into Troll Territory...




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Monday, January 20, 2014 12:46 PM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.


Indeed. I read the post and got a WTF? reaction.

So, what was your point, Geezer? If you can explain it, maybe it will help us understand.


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Monday, January 20, 2014 2:10 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
That has absolutely, positive, fucking NOTHING to do with a company getting around regulations...



How about getting around regulations with DOE help?



http://oversight.house.gov/release/figure-in-solyndra-loan-scandal-bec
omes-first-individual-to-ever-defy-legal-obligations-in-committee-subpoena-for-deposition
/


Quote:

...not paying their taxes...


http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/oct/10/irs-says-tax-avoidance
-heart-solyndra-bankruptcy-p
/


Quote:

...poisoning the water of millions...


Well, not millions, but...

Quote:

Video: Green-tech bust Solyndra busted for abandoning toxic waste

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/04/30/video-green-tech-bust-solyndra-b
usted-for-abandoning-toxic-waste
/



Quote:

...then declaring bankruptcy and being able to go "reorganize" and open right up again under another name.


Well, under the same name, actually.

http://www.sfgate.com/business/article/Solyndra-files-reorganization-p
lan-3748011.php


Quote:

That is so apples-and-oranges...


Really? Both dodged regulations, both tried tax avoidance, and both left environmental problems. The only differences I can see are that Freedom Industries hasn't filed for reorganization yet, and that - even if you include the cost of the emergency action due to the spill - they'll most likely cost taxpayers several hundred million dollars less than Solyndra.

Seems like a fine example of "the American Way" of corporate bankruptcy to me.




"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Monday, January 20, 2014 2:13 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by SIGNYM:
So, what was your point, Geezer?



That all sorts of businesses take advantage of the bankruptcy laws, dodge regulation, try to avoid taxes, pollute, and then come back after sticking the taxpayers with the bill.

So what did you think my point was?


"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Monday, January 20, 2014 2:57 PM

NIKI2

Gettin' old, but still a hippie at heart...


This isn't about "left environmental problems"--yes, many businesses do that and it's wrong in every case. This is about a current event, a real world event happening right now in which a company has POISONED THE WATER of an entire community after skirting regulations, failing to pay taxes, and then dodges the bullet by declaring bankruptcy.

This has nothing to do with Solyndra or any other case; we all know you prefer to dig up something from the past to say "so what?", apparently because what's happening right now in West Virginia is of no importance to you, but some of us are upset by this NEWS. Your point wasn't to say many businesses do this, it was to change the subject to fit your own agenda...right-wing trolling, period.
Quote:

Freedom Industries Chapter 11 Filing Reveals Owners' Strategy

Searching for shelter in the face of liability lawsuits, Freedom Industries, the source of the big West Virginia chemical spill, has retreated into federal bankruptcy court with a Chapter 11 filing late Friday. In addition to temporarily freezing litigation against a debtor company, Chapter 11 proceedings allow the bankruptcy judge to sort out whose claims go first. A side benefit is that the process forces troubled corporations to reveal some secrets. Here are my initial findings on Freedom Industries:

The company’s owner made one of the worst-timed acquisitions ever.

We now know who owns Freedom Industries, which was identified on Jan. 9 as the company leaking a hazardous coal-processing chemical into the Elk River in Charleston. The lucky winner is J. Clifford Forrest, a Pennsylvania coal magnate. Forrest acquired Freedom only weeks before the spill that cut off water to 300,000 people and shut down businesses in nine counties. Talk about buyer’s remorse!

Not that Forrest has stepped forward to deal with the mess. Connecting the dots took some detective work. Freedom’s Chapter 11 documents identify its sole owner as Chemstream Holdings. The Pennsylvania company is headquartered in Kittanning, near Pittsburgh, at the same street address as Clifford’s Rosebud Mining. Rosebud claims to be the third-largest coal producer in Pennsylvania and the 21st-largest in the U.S. Freedom’s filings also show that entities called VF Funding and Mountaineer Funding are seeking to lend as much as $5 million to keep Freedom Industries operating during its reorganization. Mountaineer Funding was incorporated just this past Friday in West Virginia; its sole “member” is Forrest. In other words, he’s seeking bankruptcy-court permission to lend millions to his besieged new acquisition.

Separate West Virginia corporate filings identify Forrest as the manager of two other companies that were merged into Freedom Industries as of Dec. 31, 2013. The corporate rearrangement might have seemed smart on New Year’s Eve; today, not so much. Lawyers for Forrest and for Freedom Industries didn’t respond to my phone calls and e-mail seeking comment.

Freedom has a strategy for spreading the blame.

The company’s bankruptcy attorneys, led by Mark Freedlander of the Pittsburgh office of McGuire Woods, used Chapter 11 to float a theory designed to ease Freedom’s liability: “It is presently hypothesized that a local water line break [caused] the ground beneath a storage tank at the Charleston facility to freeze in the extraordinary frigid temperatures in the days immediately preceding” what Freedlander delicately termed “the incident.” Freedom further hypothesized that “the hole in the affected storage tank” was caused by “an object piercing upwards through the base” of the tank.

It seems the idea is that water turning to ice expanded, pushing that mystery “object” through the floor of the tank. Hard to say if the court will buy that. Shouldn’t steel tanks containing dangerous chemicals be able to withstand the consequences of winter weather?

Whose allegedly troublesome water line is Freedom talking about?

Apparently, the suggestion is that the burst pipe might have been the responsibility of Freedom’s co-defendant in many of the liability lawsuits: the local water utility. Business and home owners are blaming the West Virginia unit of American Water Works for failing to move swiftly enough to shut down its intake, which is a mere mile and a half down the Elk River from Freedom’s plant. If the utility were also implicated in puncturing the chemical storage tank in the first place that might shift a lot of the legal hassle to American Water (AWK), the nation’s largest publicly traded water company.

The president of American Water’s West Virginia unit has said his company did everything possible to minimize harm from the spill. Something tells me Freedom’s lawyers are going to argue otherwise.

Freedom doesn’t have much money on hand.

American Water had revenue of $6.6 billion in 2012. The companies that now comprise Freedom Industries collectively had revenue of $25.7 million that year, according to the Chapter 11 filing. In 2013, Freedom’s sales increased, but only to $30.7 million. Freedom told the bankruptcy court that it has assets of worth from $1 million to $10 million. The filings show that Freedom’s top 20 unsecured creditors—apart from lawsuit plaintiffs, of course—are owed a total of $3.6 million.

Among the creditors is Eastman Chemical (EMN), the Kingsport (Tenn.)-based manufacturer that sold Freedom MCHM, the chemical that escaped into the Elk and from there into the regional water system. Eastman has much bigger concerns, however, than recovering the $127,474.84 Freedom owes it. Plaintiffs in liability suits have also named Eastman as a defendant, alleging that the company failed to warn adequately of MCHM’s hazards. Eastman’s spokeswoman has called the allegations meritless. She went out of her way, though, to add that the manufacturer couldn’t vouch for the conduct of American Water or Freedom Industries. http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-19/freedom-industries-cha
pter-11-filing-reveals-owners-strategy






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Monday, January 20, 2014 3:30 PM

FREMDFIRMA



And yet here you are, continually feedin em, when I save it only for when it's amusing or satisfyin in some fashion.

That said, I feel every forum does kinda need a "hate sink" - someone so passionately, aggressively, fervently stupid or malicious that they are a guilt-free punching bag, just to keep things moving along, so in that respect they're doing us a service, if an unpleasant one.

-F

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Monday, January 20, 2014 4:05 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by Niki2:
This isn't about "left environmental problems"--yes, many businesses do that and it's wrong in every case. This is about a current event, a real world event happening right now in which a company has POISONED THE WATER of an entire community after skirting regulations, failing to pay taxes, and then dodges the bullet by declaring bankruptcy.



If you're concerned about them poisoning the water, then discuss that. When that's third in your list - "...a company getting around regulations, not paying their taxes, poisoning the water of millions, then declaring bankruptcy and being able to go "reorganize" and open right up again under another name..." - and the title of your thread mentions bankruptcy, seems noting that other companies have done the same dodge is only fair.

Quote:

This has nothing to do with Solyndra or any other case; we all know you prefer to dig up something from the past to say "so what?", apparently because what's happening right now in West Virginia is of no importance to you, but some of us are upset by this NEWS. Your point wasn't to say many businesses do this, it was to change the subject to fit your own agenda...right-wing trolling, period.


When you call it "The American Way", seems to open the floor for any similar bankruptcy.

And where did I say "So what?". I noted both companies had dodged regulation, tried to avoid tax, made environmental messes, left the taxpayers with the bill, and might (as you noted) end up opening somewhere else free and clear. Freedom poisoned a river for several days, and Solyndra left a half billion dollar check for the taxpayers to pick up.
Both appear to be pretty shameful operations.







"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Monday, January 20, 2014 6:36 PM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by FREMDFIRMA:

And yet here you are, continually feedin em, when I save it only for when it's amusing or satisfyin in some fashion.

That said, I feel every forum does kinda need a "hate sink" - someone so passionately, aggressively, fervently stupid or malicious that they are a guilt-free punching bag, just to keep things moving along, so in that respect they're doing us a service, if an unpleasant one.

-F



I know, Frem, but Niki's just so aggravating sometimes.


"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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Monday, January 20, 2014 8:02 PM

MAL4PREZ


Wow. These RWA trolls have left to resort to but changing the subject.

But Obama... !

But Benghazi... !

But Sylandra... !

But Obamacare... !

But Benghazi... !

But the there's more threads about topic X than this... !

But Obamacare... !

But Benghazi... !

Big babies. They know they can't win on topic. How about we start a count of the number of replies from Geez, Rap, whozit, and Jongs (if she comes back) that are on topic vs the number of the above tangents. I'm guessing a ratio of 1:9 at best.

On topic: actually, I'd rather mock the trolls, because what "Freedom" has done makes me so mad I can't think straight. Fuckers. This and a million other things including the potential loss of a free internet. We're rolling down hill fast. I saw commercials yesterday about how smart cars can monitor how often we use the brakes while we drive. Big Brother knows all, folks, and we're supposed to like it so much we rush out to buy the car and let them eyeball us every second of our lives.

I think we deserve what global warming will do to us, if we as a society give away our freedoms so eagerly. I hope the next "great society" isn't so damned stupid.


*-------------------------------------------------------------*
MAL4PREZ: Clearly [The Rap]'s doing nothing but trolling now.
STORYMARK: And not even cleverly.
RAPPY: [My trolling] did its job, did it not? Easiest marks in the 'verse.
http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.aspx?bid=18&tid=57146
*-------------------------------------------------------------*

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Tuesday, January 21, 2014 9:27 AM

GEEZER

Keep the Shiny side up


Quote:

Originally posted by MAL4PREZ:
Wow. These RWA trolls have left to resort to but changing the subject.



So what's the title of the thread?

"Freedom Industries Files For Bankruptcy; Wants To Shift Cost Of Spill To Taxpayers"

So discussing companies that filed for bankruptcy and want to shift their cost to taxpayers is changing the subject?

Only in your head.




"When your heart breaks, you choose what to fill the cracks with. Love or hate. But hate won't ever heal. Only love can do that."

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