Gainesville’s Cabot-Koppers Superfund Site – Washington … We’ve got a problem here!

In a program recorded for broadcast on local Public Television in November, 2009, Gainesville City Mayor, Pegeen Hanrahan, discussed the Cabot-Koppers issue along with other guests. As host, Tom Krynski, pointed out, Mrs Hanrahan was no stranger to the issue, even in its early history. Ironically, host, Tom Krynski, made the error of assuming that everyone in Gainesville is aware of the issue when the opposite is true; this because of the very fact that neither the city, nor the homegrown University of Florida, has ever adequately raised awareness among Gainesville’s residents about the problem. In that broadcast, the Mayor spoke with apparent passion and conviction. It seems particularly strange, then, that only six days later, on November 10, 2009, before the panel representing Florida’s legislative delegation, which included Senator Steve Oelrich and House Speaker Larry Cretul, that passion and conviction had clearly passed. The delegates were genuinely shocked to hear about the issue first hand, especially since the Mayor did not actually include, among her official list of priorities, a request for the delegation to raise it in Washington. It didn’t take long for Senator Olerich to quickly realize the magnitude of the problem, likening it to the Love Canal debacle.

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