[CPEO-BIF] Maranatha Faith Center, Columbus, Mississippi

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Legal, fiscal woes leave Tronox future uncertain

by Janice Francis-Smith
The Journal Record (OK)
November 4, 2008

OKLAHOMA CITY - The problem with Tronox’s future is its past.
In 1999, the members of Maranatha Faith Center in Columbus, Miss., 
decided to expand their church. Led by the Rev. Steve Jamison, the 
burgeoning church in a small, predominantly African-American community 
made use of a bond issue to get the money for construction, which was 
expected to be repaid with donations from the higher attendance the new 
church would be able to attract.

But when construction began, they found large amounts of creosote under 
the dirt. Creosote is a wood preservative that may cause irritation of 
the skin and the respiratory tract, chemical burns of the surfaces of 
the eyes, mental confusion, kidney or liver problems, and even death in 
cases of direct contact. Construction stopped. The church filed a 
lawsuit against Kerr-McGee in 2000, alleging the creosote contamination 
came from the company’s plant next door.

Kerr-McGee closed the plant in 2003, but the lawsuit continues – though 
now Maranatha’s fight is with Tronox, the chemical company Kerr-McGee 
spun off into a separate entity in 2006.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.journalrecord.com/article.cfm?recid=93452

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



_______________________________________________
Brownfields mailing list
Brownfields@lists.cpeo.org
http://lists.cpeo.org/listinfo.cgi/brownfields-cpeo.org