Ch 18 - Never saw it coming

CHAPTER 18 NEVER SAW IT COMING

Columbus Day 1980 Following the protest, Brooklyn drove Consuelo to the Nelly Don factory, passing Harold’s drive-in on his return trip to the college.

Buoyed by a sense of accomplishment, he reflected on what a more non-thyroid life might be like.

Others had tried to help him, sometimes in ways Brooklyn didn’t fully appreciate. Even the Woz had shared an announcement regarding an important examination, one leading to designation as a board-certified industrial something. Brooklyn couldn’t recall its third term, only its three-letter C-I-H acronym, possibly a career path removed from 3-per-day hysteria.

Preservation’s first significant improvement arrived as fill-dirt, soil from Buckner and Orrick, Missouri turf farms. Ground cover

slowly lowered H-2-S air concentrations. Public works officials also met with the Missouri Gas Cooperative whose representatives offered expertise regarding collector lines, ones designed to trap gases.

The meetings must have been productive, given the city contracted with the M-G-C firm to remove landfill gases, H-2-S, too.

Following blower-flare gas line treatment, waste gases were blended into M-C-G product lines. While no one at M-G-C knew who George Taylor was , they adapted Taylor’s B-61 business plan: Get paid to remove something that you can sell.

Federal agency involvement in the Ft. Hazard protest wasn’t recorded, there may have been none. But more Kansas Citians could correctly identify Moe, Larry and Curly as members of the Three Stooges than could name all three executive branches.

Federal workers could have been likened to radiation in that while they were necessary, they were largely anonymous. Many worked in the Federal Office Building, in abbreviated terms, Kansas City’s F-O-B. As Kansas City’s largest office building it dominated two downtown blocks, north-to-south 12th to 13th, west-to-east, it eclipsed Locust and Cherry. A creative agency staffer had once devised a cardboard F-O-B model when by laying a paper-clad box of Grape-Nuts on its side beside a taller 24-ounce Wheaties. GrapeNuts modeled the F-O-B’s smaller common areas while Wheaties replicated its eighteen-story tower.

Each work day employees flexed their way through lobby turnstiles, F-O-B elevators delivering them to one of nearly three thousand small work spaces. Each of these cubicles was close to amenities like drinking fountains, but more importantly, near corkbacked bulletin boards.

Beyond listings of federal holidays, workers livened bulletin boards with clippings often derived from the Northeast News or Call newspapers, including bowling scores, children’s scholastic achievements and less frequently, holes-in-one. Following the Ft. Hazard protest, federal bulletin boards featured ones describing Consuelo’s success.

Conservative Richard Nixon signed the authorization for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration or O-S-H-A on December 29th 1970, the same year he authorized creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, in three-letters, the E-P-A. The 91st Senate confirmed lumber executive William D. Ruckelshaus as the E-P-A’s founding director. Although bookies designated the person holding-the-pot as a stakeholder, Ruckelshaus adapted that stakeholder term to the general public.

The 1980 year witnessed Congressional passage of more environmental acts than any prior or since. Staffers assembled and sent to committee the same number of legislative bills as jazz acts appearing at the Newport music festival, eight apiece. Non-musical acts included ones applicable to Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety, National Environmental Policy, Public Health and Smoking, Environmental Quality Improvement, Controlled Substances, Family Planning and even extensions of the Clean Air Act. The complexity of regulations often baffled staffers, much less stakeholders. Hundreds of staffers were shortly required to interpret, and apply thousands of newly-created pages of regulations.

At the F-O-B ID-and-Pass offices a camera flash and a noisy Polaroid cartridge pull produced a laminated US Gov- name badge, the final step necessary to become an identifiable federal employee.

Despite the fact twenty U.S. government-sponsored scientists had already won major scientific prizes, agency new hires often claimed regulation-based science was boring, shortly initiating cold calls to non-governmental HR offices. A non-government offer sometimes shortened a customary two-week resignation notice to one less than four-hours. Certificates for long-term annuitants were clumsily adapted.

Accumulated Federal Service - 0-years, 3-months, 1-week Region Seven offices accommodated stakeholders who resided in Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, geographically centered states that curiously filled the mid-alphabet I-through-O region.

Given low population densities across those four, government cars had to be driven hundreds of miles to mainly low-impact meetings.

At the St. Francis Seraph Mass following the Ft. Hazard protest, parishioners there presented Consuelo with Call and Northeast News clippings. Reversing the landfill accounts, she spotted an Irish Spring - Limit-One coupon, shortly plotting interrupted visits. From both O-S-H-A and E-P-A bulletin-boarded break rooms a common plea emerged: If a Nelly Don seamstress can straighten out city hall, think what we can do.

The G-S-A motor pool rolled into Preservation on a mid-October Wednesday. Most of its vehicles were law enforcement models but school buses were present, too.

Preceding the Columbus Day convoy, a federal marshal had reviewed a St. Francis church bulletin, one welcoming a Potosi parolee to St. Francis’ platers-to-be program. While only two warrant-supported arrests were planned, the presence of a dozen formerly incarcerated individuals must have justified school buses.

As the mechanical posse passed Ft. Hazard, a federal marshal detected a nasty odor. What’s with that rotten egg odor, Mr. E-P-A man? His seatmate comically responded: Its formula is K-C-M-O. Neither Orrick nor Buckner fill dirt had completely resolved Preservation’s Ft. Hazard-derived H-2-S issues.

Two C-60 trucks constituted the last floats in the odd parade, their occupants sporting Level-C Hazmat gear. Snoops quickly, although inaccurately, reported that the city was piloting the mother of all mosquito eradication programs there in Preservation.

The Beyond Metro task force had been formed ahead of the Ft. Hazard protest, dedicated to apprehending persons suspected of violating either environmental or conservation statutes. Three federal marshals, plus a criminal enforcement agent from the US Environmental Protection Agency and two more from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources thus descended upon St. Francis Metal Finishing.

Rather than weeks of forensic efforts, the raid had its origins in a thunderstorm, one occurring during the second week of June 1979.

The Star reported that winds collapsed portions of the Kemper Arena roof, site of the 1976 Republican Convention, adding that an unnamed Preservation plating shop had suffered damage, too.

A KCMO dispatcher posted a police officer there following the storm who radioed that Fire, meaning the fire department, should send an inspector. A fire unit secured St. Francis Plating’s gas line pending a more thorough evaluation, one scheduled for a day later.

While the inspector uncovered no storm-related issues, he made a disturbing discovery, one unrelated to either gas or roofs. Behind a crude partition he spotted two large carboys filled with liquid plating wastes, their drain lines umbilical’d to an unused well shaft.

He used a Polaroid camera to produce eight troubling images.

After a pass down Benton Boulevard for an anxiety-relieving Maxine sausage biscuit, he swung west on 22nd toward the F-O-B, home of E-P-A’s Region Seven. Twice circling Locust to Cherry, he squeezed his car into a parking space clearly marked police vehicles only. Fire’s crisp white-on-Royal blue inspector’s uniform, plus his disturbing account, served him well.. Everyone there recalled his word choice: Multiple waste lines connected to what appears to be a legacy well.

Following the storm, nearly three hundred days were required for criminal prosecution divisions of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Justice, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and Jackson County to assemble their cases. Fr. Jacob’s lessee, Lonnie Proffit faced multiple counts of illegally discharging toxic waste.

Hydrogeology calculations, whatever those were, yielded a remarkable finding. Regulators checked them twice before concluding Proffit had dispatched as many as six thousand gallons of contaminated water into an improvised well, in the process possibly contaminating six million aquifer gallons.

A dozen law enforcement officers were assigned to cuff two men, a fifty-eight-year-old plating operator and a priest codefendant. Most of the convict-turned-platers had disappeared by the time the odd law enforcement caravan turned onto Nicholson, the exception being a young African-American male who sat across the street eating a sandwich and reading a book.

The legal foundation for the charges against Fr. Jacob was a bit of a stretch. While prosecutors agreed he signed the lease they were

divided over intent. Unfortunately for him, Fr. Jacob’s Day-Timer revealed two shop tours of the electroplating facility.

A U.S. marshal draped a topcoat over the prelate’s shaking shoulders as Fr. Jacob was seated in the back of the police car.

Despite policy violations, front-cuffing and there loaned coat were concessions to civility.

Allowed a single call, Jacob’s message to a cheery chancery volunteer was misinterpreted. I’m being taken to the Jackson County jail on pollution charges. The associate bishop wondered why Jacob had the volunteer hand him a while-you-were-out note that St. Francis’ pastor was distributing Holy Communion at the jail.

Seated behind the cruiser’s partition, ex-Hells Angel Proffit briefed Jacob on both bonding and representation issues. Father, they don’t make defense attorneys better than Magic Mike leading to a question.

Can he represent me, too? Their lawyer’s call to Sharp’s bonding expedited both men's release. Magic Mike laughed when asked reporters about not-guilty verdicts for a Catholic priest and his Northeast businessman-of-the-year co-defendant.

A released-by-dinner Jacob sat at a lonely dining room table, staring at an uneaten entrée consisting of yellow-hued Morton’s chicken flanked by pasty mashed potatoes and peas that could have doubled as air rifle BB’s. Prospects of a chancery visit to explain the arrest were no more attractive than the uneaten Morton’s entree.

The day after Jacob’s arrest the chancery volunteer spotted a Star article that revealed the non-voluntary nature of Jacob’s jail visit.

The old man settled on, Oh my stars, as opposed to a stronger expression of surprise.

Jacob shouldn’t have worried. While requiring three stays, two changes of venue and a rescheduled hearing, all charges against him were dropped. Proffit was eventually convicted of failure to obtain a waste water discharge permit and reinvented himself as a railroad herbicide contractor in Kingsville, Missouri.

Fr. Jacob requested parish council advice regarding the two remaining men, twenty-six year-old Morris Johnson and thirty yearold Arnie Patchet. A quiet student of Louis L’Amour westerns, Johnson accepted both the monotony and occasional acid burns

associated with plating. Patchet, on the other hand, possessed an irritating, fidgeting manner but, to his credit, possessed a near encyclopedic knowledge of Harley parts interchangeability. The council suggested an intermediate course, both could remain for ninety more days.

By 1980 attitudes regarding chemicals were colored by concerns arising from Agent Orange. Enthusiasm for 3-new-compounds per day was tempered by new questions involving poorlycharacterized chemicals. Even industrial aromas raised flags, as though chemical toxicity could be sniffed. Big piles of aromatic creosoted railroad ties headed the sniff-based suspicion list.

An E-P-A supervisor introduced a professionally-attired female, referring to her as Nelda, describing her as a psychologist – slash statistician, someone skilled in both the design and interpretation of questionnaires.

F-O-B meeting seating charts often reflected interest levels. In this case, female staffers found front row seats, joined there by a single retirement-eligible male. Younger males sifted in late and sprawled across the room’s back row. The meeting room’s front listened and took notes while its back pre-occupied itself with combinations of giggles, burps and biological noises.

Having forgotten the speaker’s name, a back-row commando nudged his partner. What was her name, Nell, Nelda, Nellie? Freshlyintroduced but obviously forgettable Nelda, shortly positioned a transparency sheet on a blinding overhead screen, lettering through what she described as a questionnaire-based approach and lettered as E-P-A’s New Way Forward.

When the presider opened things up for questions, the front row male had a question. What if the respondents, our stakeholders, don’t know how to complete the forms?

Nelda scrawled a two-word answer - Default values. A jokester sharing a sticky box of Jujubes with a co-conspirator inaccurately parroted her words. Like I said, find fault.

Glancing at his watch as if piloting a low-on-fuel plane, the presider informed them they were three-minutes into break time.

But before they broke, he shared news that the E-P-A mailroom had sent the first questionnaire to a nearby creosoting facility. The New

Way Forward approach would be tested in a cross tie-treating firm named P-I-S-C-O. Yes, the back row laughed.

From its origins as Preservation Sleeper Tie Company two buildings served the tie-treaters, the larger one covered ten thousand square feet and hosted two-rail car load points while the smaller structure, a rejected George Taylor transplant bungalow, served as the plant’s office.

Following two boring focus group meetings and a boozy corporate retreat aboard a Lake Michigan houseboat, managers had realigned the Preservation Sleeper Tie Company as P-I-S-C-O. Only a daiquiri-stained tablet archived the background to its origins: Preservation Integrated Systems for Chemical Optimization.

Daiquiris and beyond, managers attempted to diversify their client base beyond Class I railroads. Household decks rapidly replaced porches and verandas, planked structures better suited to trendy Tiki torch alcoves and party-prompting hot tubs. Given no one wanted a sticky creosoted deck, non-sticky pentachlorophenol or P-C-P as it was called advanced.

Uninvited to houseboat cruise or focus groups, Kansas City manager TJ Williams was informed by letter of product line modifications. But he mainly viewed the new P-C-P work as a baby project, given its haul-outs were restricted to no more than five-tons.

Rebranding didn’t affect TJ’s routine until one day he signed for a registered letter, one featuring an E-P-A Region Seven return.

Adapting his clasp knife to slit the envelope, TJ reviewed several pages of requirements, including one outlining a remediation plan.

This odd New Way Forward document appeared to describe their on-site lagoons using terms more appropriate to Times Beach, Missouri or perhaps even New York’s Love Canal.

D-I-O-X-I-N and B-E-N-Z-O-F-U-R-A-N. The document’s clarifying features included a parenthetical, although useless reference equating sixty to 60-days for their response and an 816-prefixed number for someone designated as their point-of-contact, P-O-C. TJ quickly notified Chicago of the packet’s questionnaire requirements, emphasizing the New Way Forward subject line.

Over the following six weeks, he telephonically followed-up and even drove to Chicago. Phoning the 816-number, TJ asking to speak to his P-O-C but his calls yielded little more than a Jujube jawed mumble. Like I said, use default values. Nothing of a clarifying nature arrived so TJ simply pushed on, completing haul-outs by late each Saturday, occasionally causing him to nod off during Fr. Jacob’s homilies.

In 1974 when the federal Office of Management and Budget established ten federal regions, a joke arose that no two used identical regulatory guidelines. While E-P-A officials were posted to both Little Rock and Springdale, those offices were busy regulating a poultry empire, one featuring ten times as many chickens as Arkansans. For Dallas’ E-P-A, neither creosote contamination nor Pine Bluff-based wood treatment constituted a priority. Forestry, and by extension, wood treatment were integral features of Arkansas’ culture.

Invoices and company announcements marched through TJ’s outbox with a single exception, the New Way Forward questionnaire.

His recommendation to halt production to remediate the lagoons was only poorly received in Chicago. A Friday afternoon conference call ramped from heated to personal and lastly to disconnected.

Everything P-I-S-C-O appeared to synchronize with a biweekly pay cycle.

On a Friday two weeks hence, six heavy thuds announced arrival of Chicago managers who shortly shuttered the Kansas City plant. An HR-Chicago person provided workers there with pencils, lined-forms and a self-addressed envelopes. They later agreed the H-R guy made Pine Bluff transfers sound as if they had won expense-paid trips to the Bahamas.

The workers quickly realized Boss Man hadn’t been offered transfer paperwork. And if he weren’t going, neither were they.

The first to discard an unneeded form moved the mesh receptacle to the porch’s forward edge so others wouldn’t need to climb steps.

Minutes later the mesh can contained all of the self-addressed envelopes, less P-I-S-C-O-provided stamps. TJ’s bunch never saw it coming.

Racer had encountered Andy once since their MoPac days, omitting the cake drop-off with Olive. Racer’s attitude regarding Andy swung between no-news-is-good toward big-and-heavy possibilities. On the heels of the failed St. Francis prosecutions, the Beyond Metro task force reassembled only one additional time.

Additional investigations had led to one displaced and two local arrests, each judged rock solid by prosecutors.

Racer’s next communication regarding his former co-worker came in the form of a phone call from Olive. Sobbing, Olive related how Andy had been apprehended the previous day as he arrived at the Jigger to meet someone she referred to as Diesel Dave. According to Olive’s description Andy had been booked into the Jackson County jail on charges of exceeding his creel limit.

During their MoPac year together Racer had never heard Andy express any interest in fishing. Racer assured Olive that he would contact Sharp’s bonding regarding Andy’s release. What about Andy’s curious goodbye statement to Wurth and other times he neglected weed spraying to conduct extended conversations with both Ginseng root-hunters and commercial fishermen?

Just because bonding-out Sharp’s operated cash-only, didn’t make that morning a good time to request a K-L-W advance. While Racer was aware he could have tapped his railroad credit union account, doing so would have meant sharing Olive’s sad news with Phyllis.

Racer grabbed his and adapted a metal lab spatula to remove its handlebar end plugs, a process yielding two previously secreted one hundred dollar bills. After pausing the Jarrell-Ash’s progress, Racer knocked on Mel’s office door.

Prof, could I take a look at your paper - I’ll just need it a minute. He rattled through four pages before a Community Beat entry caught Racer’s eye.

A local resident, Andrew, aka Agent Orange, Smith was apprehended by the “Beyond Metro” task force, officers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Missouri Department of Conservation. Smith attempted to sell two female paddlefish, each weighing more than 20-pounds, along with 15-pounds of processed paddlefish eggs for $6000 to an undercover agent. The federal Lacey Protected Species Act protects paddlefish and their eggs.

David, aka Diesel Numachev, Smith’s alleged partner was apprehended at a separate Kansas City address.

The same day a related arrest was made by Fish and Wildlife Service officers in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania apprehending a 67year-old male listed as Rolf, aka Weeds-fear-me, Wurth who was charged with mail fraud, transporting protected species across state lines and fleeing. While Smith has no arrest history, Numachev and Wurth have previously pled guilty to misdemeanor Lacey Act violations.

Given the Sharps’ counsel, Racer waited near the Jackson county jail on a small knoll with scant grass cover but too much dog poop.

The Sharp’s made it sound as if Racer were meeting an airport arrival. If Andy didn’t know who would arrange his bail, he certainly knew who had carried him on the Missouri-Pacific.

As recently-released Andy approached, Racer adapted an expression they had first heard on a miserable Philadelphia morning. Everything out there was big-and-heavy, Andy. It all wanted to kill us; we survived so you could come home to be a better father.

Leaving Andy to arrange a way home, Racer rode a depleted safety deposit bicycle, wondering where his words originated, attributing them to Vito, plus an older voice he couldn’t identify.

The Jarrell-Ash awaited an act two performance, one followed by Racer’s third trip to the Guzman home, this time in search of a favor.