Muslims in Germany Rally in Support of Press Freedom
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Marian Turza FEEL THE FREEDOM /2015/
Music, Lyrics, Guitars, Bass, Keyboards, Vocals by Marian Turza FEEL THE FREEDOM /of your heart/ When someone`s left and stays behind the door of your life, when girl has gone but she is...

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Freedom Squad - http://www.rage.tf
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Freedom Squad - http://www.rage.tf - Video

With available funds dwindling and millions in claims pending over the January 2014 Elk River chemical leak, the Freedom Industries bankruptcy case appears to be at a crossroads.

No clear plan for resolving the case is in sight, prompting U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ronald Pearson to schedule a status conference early next month to ask various interested parties for options.

Pearson called the conference, set for 10 a.m. March 3, to ask for input with respect to how this case should be administered to conclusion utilizing the limited resources available to obtain the best results for the public and parties in interest, the judge said in a three-page order entered on Feb. 6. The conference will be held in the bankruptcy courtroom at the Robert C. Byrd U.S. District Courthouse, and is open to the public, the judges order said.

In the ruling, Pearson noted that more than $200 million in claims have been filed against Freedom Industries, with most of that accounted for by 3,800 damage claims filed by victims of the Jan. 9, 2014, leak that contaminated the regional drinking water supply.

But, the judge noted, Freedoms most recent financial report to the court showed payables of $3.2 million for legal and environmental consultant fees that have not yet been approved by the court.

Only $1.5 million in cash remains from a total of almost $16 million in assets listed by the debtor at filing of its bankruptcy petition, Pearson said.

The judge said these numbers raise questions about what will be proposed by Freedoms current management led by a chief restructuring officer approved by the court with respect to the rights to the $3 million insurance policy limits the debtor is attempting to collect as a result of the spill incident.

While Freedom appeared to have worked out a deal with AIG Specialty Insurance Co., Pearson noted that former Freedom President Gary Southern facing indictment on Clean Water Act violation and bankruptcy fraud charges has filed a new challenge to the insurance deal. Lawyers for some residents had hoped that the $3.2 million insurance payment could be used for a class-action settlement funding projects like water testing or studies of leak-related health effects.

The court is not comfortable with moving forward with a decision about how this case should be administered or what might be done with the proposed $3.2 million of insurance proceeds without greater input from spill claimants who hold 95 percent of the claims in the case, Pearson said in a second order, made public Feb. 9.

Because no class-action case against Freedom has yet been approved in U.S. District Court or in the bankruptcy case, Pearson asked bankruptcy case claims agent Jim Lane and Tony Majestro, a lawyer for some residents, to meet with lawyers for all leak victims to receive information from spill claimants as to the administration of this case and what rights they assert in the case.

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Freedom bankruptcy case at crossroads

Officials overseeing the Freedom Industries bankruptcy on Tuesday touted progress on cleanup of the companys Elk River facility, but acknowledged that answers to other pressing issues that have stalled the resolution of the case remain elusive.

Still unclear are crucial decisions regarding how or when Freedom might obtain an insurance payment of more than $3 million for the January 2014 chemical leak, how victims might eventually be compensated, and whether additional funds can be recouped for the bankruptcy estate from various parties, including former Freedom owners and executives.

Weve got to make some progress on these things, said U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Ronald Pearson. Lets get these things teed up.

Pearson spoke Tuesday morning to a courtroom full of lawyers representing Freedom Industries, various companies Freedom owes money to, victims, state agencies, West Virginia American Water and former Freedom officials.

The judge called a status conference of interested parties after observing in an early February order that the case was at a crossroads. At the time, Freedom had dwindling resources, with just $1.5 million in cash and $200 million in claims, and a liquidation plan that Pearson said he didnt think could ever be approved as written.

In a status report submitted on Friday, Freedoms court-approved chief restructuring officer, Mark Welch, said that the company currently has about $700,000 cash in hand. The report said Freedom hopes to get Pearsons approval to put about $450,000 of that into an escrow account to fund the rest of the remediation of the Elk River facility, site of the leak that contaminated drinking water for 300,000 residents across the Kanawha Valley and surrounding communities.

The report said that Freedom has spent no less than $10.5 million on matters relating to environmental compliance, testing and remediation since it filed for bankruptcy more than a year ago. After tearing down and removing more than a dozen chemical tanks at the Etowah Terminal along the Elk River, Welch also oversaw the removal of 600 tons of contaminated soil and construction of retention berms around the former footprint of the facilitys Crude MCHM tanks, the report said.

Shortly before Welch filed his status report with the bankruptcy court, the state Department of Environmental Protection accepted the Freedom site into its voluntary industrial cleanup program. The move gives the company 31 days to negotiate with the DEP on a schedule for developing its final cleanup plan.

Welch said in his report that he believes Freedoms only remaining remediation work involves capping the MCHM portion of the facility, monitoring, ongoing stormwater collection and additional water and other testing.

Acceptance into the voluntary DEP program allows Freedom to clean up the site based on some as-yet-undetermined risk-based contamination standard, as opposed to previous state agency orders that required all MCHM contamination at the location to be removed. DEP Secretary Randy Huffman has said, though, that Freedom must clean up the site so that the risk of this stuff getting back in the water has been eliminated -- not just minimized.

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Answers remains elusive in Freedom Industries bankruptcy case

CHARLESTON, W.Va. A federal judge has scheduled plea hearings for next month for Freedom Industries and four former Freedom officials. All are expected to plead guilty to Clean Water Act crimes in connection with the January 2014 chemical leak that contaminated the drinking water supply for hundreds of thousands of residents in Charleston and surrounding communities.

U.S. District Judge Thomas E. Johnston scheduled the plea hearing for Freedom Industries for 3 p.m. March 23. The company has said it has reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors on one felony and two misdemeanor pollution charges outlined in an information filed against the company. An information is a charging document that generally indicates that the defendant is cooperating with authorities and has reached a plea agreement.

Johnston scheduled a plea hearing for former Freedom official William Tis for 10 a.m. March 16 and for former Freedom official Charles Herzing for 2 p.m. March 16.

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin confirmed earlier this week that Tis and Herzing had both reached plea agreements with his office.

Tis and Herzing were both charged with three misdemeanor water pollution crimes in an indictment handed up by a federal grand jury in December. Both had originally pleaded not guilty.

Johnston set a plea hearing for former Freedom official Michael Burdette for 10 a.m. March 18 and for former Freedom official Robert Reynolds for 2 p.m. March 18.

Burdette and Reynolds were charged in separate informations with one misdemeanor count each of violating the Clean Water Act. They have not yet made any court appearances.

Former Freedom officials Dennis Farrell and Gary Southern both also face three Clean Water Act charges, and Southern faces separate bankruptcy fraud charges for allegedly trying to hide his personal wealth from Freedoms bankruptcy proceeding and from civil lawsuits filed against the company over the leak. Farrell and Southern both have pleaded not guilty. Trial is scheduled for Oct. 6.

Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kward@wvgazette.com, 304-348-1702 or follow @kenwardjr on Twitter.

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Freedom Industries plea hearings set

Two former Freedom Industries officials who were indicted on Clean Water Act charges have agreed to plead guilty in the governments case over the January 2014 Elk River chemical leak that contaminated the drinking water for hundreds of thousands of residents, prosecutors revealed in court documents filed Wednesday morning.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Philip Wright filed separate motions this morning in U.S. District Court in Charleston, asking to schedule guilty plea hearings in the cases involving former Freedom officials William Tis and Charles Herzing.

U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin confirmed that Tis and Herzing had both reached plea agreements with his office.

Tis and Herzing were both charged with three misdemeanor water pollution crimes in an indictment handed up by a federal grand jury in December. Both had pleaded not guilty. Trial was scheduled to start on March 10, but the defendants had already asked for a delay in the proceedings.

The two men are among six former Freedom officials facing criminal charges following Goodwins investigation of the Jan. 9, 2014, spill of Crude MCHM and other chemicals from a storage tank at the companys facility, located just 1.5 miles up the Elk River from West Virginia American Waters regional drinking water plant.

Former Freedom officials Dennis Farrell and Gary Southern both also face three Clean Water Act charges, and Southern faces separate bankruptcy fraud charges for allegedly trying to hide his personal wealth from Freedoms bankruptcy proceeding and from civil lawsuits filed against the company over the spill. Farrell and Southern have both pleaded not guilty.

Also Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Thomas E. Johnston agreed to delay trial in the cases from March 10 until Oct. 6.

Pre-trial motions are due Aug. 21, responses due Aug. 28, and a pre-trial hearing was scheduled for Sept. 2, according to a two-page order Johnston entered Wednesday afternoon.

Earlier in the day Wednesday, prosecutors also filed motions to schedule guilty plea hearings for Freedom Industries and for two other Freedom officials, Michael Burdette and Robert Reynolds, who face charges related to the spill.

Freedom Industries has said in a prepared statement that it has reached a plea agreement with federal prosecutors on one felony and two misdemeanor Clean Water Act charges outlined in an information filed against the company. An information is a charging document that generally indicates that the defendant is cooperating with authorities and has reached a plea agreement.

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Two Freedom officials to plead guilty, prosecutors say

West Virginia regulators on Friday approved a request from Freedom Industries to enter into the states voluntary toxic remediation program, a move that the bankrupt company says could ease the costs of its completing the cleanup of the site of last years Elk River chemical spill.

The state Department of Environmental Protections approval of Freedoms application starts a 31-day clock ticking on Freedom negotiating an agreement with DEPs Voluntary Remediation Program for a plan that will outline timeframes for further water and soil sampling at the site, a formal risk assessment, and development of a workplan for the cleanup, said Dave Long, a project manager at DEPs Office of Environmental Remediation.

This should stop the cash bleed and allow us to finally negotiate a completion of this project, said Mark Welch, Freedoms chief restructuring officer.

Freedom officials have been looking for months to get into the DEP program as a way to avoid a more stringent non-detect cleanup standard that was imposed by the initial enforcement orders state inspectors issued after Freedom spilled thousands of gallons of MCHM and other chemicals into the Elk jut upstream from the regions drinking water intake.

In November, DEP officials agreed to a new deal with Freedom that lifted those previous enforcement orders, paving the way for the company to apply to the voluntary program.

A few weeks after the January 2014 spill, DEP Secretary Randy Huffman had said that the Tomblin administrations plans for the Freedom cleanup were pretty clear.

I can say for certain that the state of West Virginia is not going to abandon that site or abandon the remediation efforts until there is 100-percent certainty that the risk of this stuff getting back in the water has been eliminated not just minimized, Huffman said at the time. I know what my boss is going to say about that, and I think I can make that statement. We just cant have that possibility existing.

Huffman has repeatedly said since then that even if Freedom got into the voluntary program, the company would have to convince his agency that any risk-based cleanup standards would eliminate any risk that MCHM would ever again contaminate the drinking water supply for hundreds of thousands of people in Charleston and surrounding communities.

The voluntary program requires a public notice and the establishment by Freedom of a public repository for information about the site. Strictly speaking, the program does not require a public comment period or other public input procedures. But Long said that DEP had convinced Freedom to hold a public meeting to explain its cleanup plans to the public. That meeting has not yet been scheduled, Long said.

Welch said that his hope is that there is little remediation left to do, other than put a cap over the site and establish some sort of environmental monitoring program.

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DEP lets Freedom into 'voluntary' toxic cleanup program