Post by Historian on Oct 3, 2009 8:06:12 GMT -5
Ponca Nation gets $10.5 million settlement in environmental lawsuit
by Brian Daffron, ICT Correspondent
Indian Country Today - 1 October 2009
www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/61480677.html
ANADARKO, Okla. – After nearly five years of litigation, the China Synthetic Rubber Corporation and its American subsidiary, the Houston, Texas-based Continental Carbon Company USA, has agreed to pay $10.5 million in a class action lawsuit with the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma and nearly 2,000 tribal home and landowners. Continental Carbon and its parent company are owned by the Koo family of Taiwan.
The lawsuit, originally filed in April 2005, is based on allegations made by the Ponca Nation about carbon black dust being emitted into the air from its Ponca City, Okla. facility. In previously published articles by Indian Country Today dated Aug. 10 and Aug. 17, 2007, Ponca families who lived closest to the plant suffered from illnesses such as asthma and other breathing-related problems and had difficulty keeping the black dust out of their homes. Carbon black is an ingredient in products like car tires and rubber hoses.
The original date of settlement was Feb. 6, however, the terms of the settlement continued to be in contention as late as May. Through the summer, class notices had to be published in national and local newspapers in Oklahoma.
Ponca class representative attorneys Kalyn Free and Jason Aamodt said they, along with their co-counsel Christine Little, were in court July 28, asking for a motion of final approval for the terms of the settlement. They were prepared to have expert witnesses and Ponca class representative Amos Hinton testify in court. Free said the federal judge, Robin Cauthron, decided the settlement was adequate and met federal requirements and granted final approval July 31. By the time the case received final approval, more than one million pages of documents had been generated and at least 170 depositions taken throughout the United States.
The terms of the settlement include $300,000 each going to 11 Ponca homeowners who were most affected by the pollution to facilitate moving to a new home; which Continental Carbon has to purchase. Other funds were divided among fractionated landowners of original Ponca allotments according to how much property is owned, with class representatives receiving additional payments of $1,000 to $15,000. The Ponca Nation as a whole will get a check for $320,595. Payments were scheduled to begin Sept. 1.
Based on agreements made by the Ponca Nation and class representatives, the attorneys in this case received 40 percent, due in part to the out-of-pocket expenses accrued by attorneys, which added up to nearly $1.8 million. When Free and Aamodt decided to take what is considered in legal terms to be an “undesirable” case, litigation began in part through a $100,000 grant from the Shakopee Tribe of Minnesota and a $50,000 grant from the Santa Fe, N.M.-based Lannan Foundation. Because of these two grants, $150,000 from the attorney fees will go straight into the Ponca Nation burial fund.
An additional stipulation to the settlement is that Continental Carbon is now legally obligated to test and clean up any future carbon black pollution that may occur in the area, and a third party must do the testing. Whenever a tribal member finds potential pollution, there is a seven-day window of time to report it.
“There’s an agreement between the company and the class where each time any class member believes that they have a problem that’s attributable to the company, then the company will immediately dispatch someone to collect a sample and inspect the problem,” Aamodt said. “Then, there’s a process for resolving the claim, which would involve both the cleaning up of anything that the Continental Company’s caused as well as paying damages that’s appropriate.”
Continental Carbon admits no guilt in this settlement. In a press release issued Aug. 3, a statement from Continental Carbon President Kim K.T. Pan states that, “Continental Carbon Company is demonstrating strong character and ethical behavior in settling these lawsuits. While we strongly disagree with the claims of the plaintiffs in both of these class action lawsuits, settling these cases allows our company to focus on managing our business in a highly competitive environment. … CCC remains committed to doing the right thing in terms of corporate and environmental stewardship.”
Although Ponca tribal members and elected officials had been filing complaints to the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and the federal Environmental Protection Agency for years before the lawsuit was filed, Continental Carbon also said that “in the past, few complaints were made in time to allow accurate identification of the root source of the problem so that rumor and myth essentially substituted for science.”
Free and Aamodt gave much of the credit for the resolution of the case to the appointed settlement federal judge, Lee R. West and to Cauthron. Free also gave credit to members of United Steel Workers for giving sworn depositions in favor of the Ponca class members.
A member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Free wrote in her opening statement during the motion for final approval hearing about elders such as Thelma Buffalohead, who passed on during the time of the case, not living to see justice carried out.
“I was angry because [Buffalohead] had sat through five days of depositions of her and her husband, and at 89 years old, she had lost her life without seeing justice in this case.”
Hinton, a descendant of Ponca Chief Standing Buffalo, explained to the court the importance of the land to the Ponca and why the pollution should end.
“This land, our homes, these graves are in a very real sense sacred because these things are the only remaining inheritance that I and my tribe have as a result of the considerable, involuntary contribution that we made to the development of the American West, Nebraska and Oklahoma. In less delicate terms, pollution being placed on our ancestor’s graves and our homes for the sake of profit by foreign corporations (or domestic ones, for that matter) is completely unacceptable, and it had to be stopped.”
Free, a former environmental prosecutor for the Justice Department, said Indian country as a whole could no longer rely on state and federal governments to help with environmental problems on tribal lands.
“There’s a lot more important things going on in Indian country than gaming. The dirty air that our people are breathing, the dirty water that they’re drinking, the hazardous waste landfills that are in their backyards are killing future generations and causing long-term health effects. It needs to be a priority of tribal government, and it needs to be a priority of lawyers representing tribal governments.”
by Brian Daffron, ICT Correspondent
Indian Country Today - 1 October 2009
www.indiancountrytoday.com/national/61480677.html
ANADARKO, Okla. – After nearly five years of litigation, the China Synthetic Rubber Corporation and its American subsidiary, the Houston, Texas-based Continental Carbon Company USA, has agreed to pay $10.5 million in a class action lawsuit with the Ponca Nation of Oklahoma and nearly 2,000 tribal home and landowners. Continental Carbon and its parent company are owned by the Koo family of Taiwan.
The lawsuit, originally filed in April 2005, is based on allegations made by the Ponca Nation about carbon black dust being emitted into the air from its Ponca City, Okla. facility. In previously published articles by Indian Country Today dated Aug. 10 and Aug. 17, 2007, Ponca families who lived closest to the plant suffered from illnesses such as asthma and other breathing-related problems and had difficulty keeping the black dust out of their homes. Carbon black is an ingredient in products like car tires and rubber hoses.
The original date of settlement was Feb. 6, however, the terms of the settlement continued to be in contention as late as May. Through the summer, class notices had to be published in national and local newspapers in Oklahoma.
Ponca class representative attorneys Kalyn Free and Jason Aamodt said they, along with their co-counsel Christine Little, were in court July 28, asking for a motion of final approval for the terms of the settlement. They were prepared to have expert witnesses and Ponca class representative Amos Hinton testify in court. Free said the federal judge, Robin Cauthron, decided the settlement was adequate and met federal requirements and granted final approval July 31. By the time the case received final approval, more than one million pages of documents had been generated and at least 170 depositions taken throughout the United States.
The terms of the settlement include $300,000 each going to 11 Ponca homeowners who were most affected by the pollution to facilitate moving to a new home; which Continental Carbon has to purchase. Other funds were divided among fractionated landowners of original Ponca allotments according to how much property is owned, with class representatives receiving additional payments of $1,000 to $15,000. The Ponca Nation as a whole will get a check for $320,595. Payments were scheduled to begin Sept. 1.
Based on agreements made by the Ponca Nation and class representatives, the attorneys in this case received 40 percent, due in part to the out-of-pocket expenses accrued by attorneys, which added up to nearly $1.8 million. When Free and Aamodt decided to take what is considered in legal terms to be an “undesirable” case, litigation began in part through a $100,000 grant from the Shakopee Tribe of Minnesota and a $50,000 grant from the Santa Fe, N.M.-based Lannan Foundation. Because of these two grants, $150,000 from the attorney fees will go straight into the Ponca Nation burial fund.
An additional stipulation to the settlement is that Continental Carbon is now legally obligated to test and clean up any future carbon black pollution that may occur in the area, and a third party must do the testing. Whenever a tribal member finds potential pollution, there is a seven-day window of time to report it.
“There’s an agreement between the company and the class where each time any class member believes that they have a problem that’s attributable to the company, then the company will immediately dispatch someone to collect a sample and inspect the problem,” Aamodt said. “Then, there’s a process for resolving the claim, which would involve both the cleaning up of anything that the Continental Company’s caused as well as paying damages that’s appropriate.”
Continental Carbon admits no guilt in this settlement. In a press release issued Aug. 3, a statement from Continental Carbon President Kim K.T. Pan states that, “Continental Carbon Company is demonstrating strong character and ethical behavior in settling these lawsuits. While we strongly disagree with the claims of the plaintiffs in both of these class action lawsuits, settling these cases allows our company to focus on managing our business in a highly competitive environment. … CCC remains committed to doing the right thing in terms of corporate and environmental stewardship.”
Although Ponca tribal members and elected officials had been filing complaints to the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality and the federal Environmental Protection Agency for years before the lawsuit was filed, Continental Carbon also said that “in the past, few complaints were made in time to allow accurate identification of the root source of the problem so that rumor and myth essentially substituted for science.”
Free and Aamodt gave much of the credit for the resolution of the case to the appointed settlement federal judge, Lee R. West and to Cauthron. Free also gave credit to members of United Steel Workers for giving sworn depositions in favor of the Ponca class members.
A member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, Free wrote in her opening statement during the motion for final approval hearing about elders such as Thelma Buffalohead, who passed on during the time of the case, not living to see justice carried out.
“I was angry because [Buffalohead] had sat through five days of depositions of her and her husband, and at 89 years old, she had lost her life without seeing justice in this case.”
Hinton, a descendant of Ponca Chief Standing Buffalo, explained to the court the importance of the land to the Ponca and why the pollution should end.
“This land, our homes, these graves are in a very real sense sacred because these things are the only remaining inheritance that I and my tribe have as a result of the considerable, involuntary contribution that we made to the development of the American West, Nebraska and Oklahoma. In less delicate terms, pollution being placed on our ancestor’s graves and our homes for the sake of profit by foreign corporations (or domestic ones, for that matter) is completely unacceptable, and it had to be stopped.”
Free, a former environmental prosecutor for the Justice Department, said Indian country as a whole could no longer rely on state and federal governments to help with environmental problems on tribal lands.
“There’s a lot more important things going on in Indian country than gaming. The dirty air that our people are breathing, the dirty water that they’re drinking, the hazardous waste landfills that are in their backyards are killing future generations and causing long-term health effects. It needs to be a priority of tribal government, and it needs to be a priority of lawyers representing tribal governments.”