ANOTHER reason to fire Lam? Cheney's dirty water boondoggle: Larisa Alexandrovna.

[bleever]

Reprinted with the permission of the author:

Larisa Alexandrovna comments on yet another angle to the Carol Lam firing, drawing on a story reported earlier by Raw Story:

It just occurred to me that Carol Lam could have been investigating allegations of bribery stemming from a San Diego water treatment deal. I broke the story with Miriam Raftery a while back, and the WSJ later "broke" it again (because crediting other people's work is not something the WSJ does). But why would a water treatment project be on Lam's radar? Read grasshopper and see for yourself (emphasis added), from my original article:

"An explosive report, obtained in part by RAW STORY, and soon to be released by the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), fingers high-level officials both on the federal and local California level in allegations of influence-peddling ensnaring members of both parties.

According to documents and whistleblowers concerning a San Diego wastewater treatment plant to be built in Tijuana, Mexico, Vice President Dick Cheney, Reps. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and Bob Filner (D-CA), and former congressman and current Republican congressional candidate Brian Bilbray have allegedly advanced the project despite serious concerns from those involved."

<snip>

The proposed Bajagua Project is a secondary wastewater treatment plant for San Diego, named after the company, Bajagua Project, LLC, which was founded solely to get the no-bid contract for water treatment. The agreement is a private-public fee-for-service proposition that will charge the federal government billions. The estimated profit forecast for the project is upwards of $600 million dollars over a twenty-year span.

That kind of money is nothing to sneeze at folks.

Documents recently obtained by Raw Story and now also available at www.bajagua.org, a site set up by the National Security Whistleblower’s Coalition, indicate Cheney met twice with Bajagua officials, on October 15, 2002 and again on September 4, 2003. Cheney is alleged to have pressured the Department of Justice and the Council on Environmental Quality to give Bajagua a pass on clean water concerns and the no-bid contract for building the treatment facility.

In a letter to Cheney dated October 15, 2002, Bajagua Project manager Jim Simmons made clear that the Vice President had been instrumental in promoting Bajagua’s efforts.

“My colleagues and I are very grateful that you could spend some time with us in Roswell New Mexico on Monday October 14,” Simmons wrote. “We do appreciate your effort on our behalf and the wonderful job you and President Bush are doing for our country.”

I wonder if this is why Carol Lam got "pushed out?" Thoughts?

http://www.atlargely.com/2007/03/could_carol_lam.html

One more thought: Bilbray?? The illegally sworn-in Brian Bilbray? The Bilbray that then won a dubious general election contest with suspicious results and quashed recounts? THAT Bilbray?


Just when you think the water can't get any dirtier...they privatize the water treatment plants.

[rumpel]

1. yes, and the Bilbray, who had the nerve to testify at the Feinstein

hearing on elections..making election fraud all about illegal immigrants somehow voting - which is absurd to begin with...

[bleever]

2. If crying "voter fraud" is what brings them down, the irony

will be downright mythical in its perfection.

[glitch]

5. Oh man, chills.

And slightly hysterical laughter.

[kitkat65]

3. Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown.

[bleever]

6. Shoot, I forgot to use that line.

Thanks. :)

[caligirl]

4. Bilbray, Hunter, Pombo caught up in this as well.

[EVDebs]

7. This is wild, RWE a foreign firm is going to be given a contract to run Sonoma County's Occidental

wastewater treatment plant. Just heard about this not long ago. Seems like the Democrats (this is in Lynn Woolsey's district in Western Sonoma County, north of SF and Marin) are being played off too.

A TINY TINY town with only around 52 connections but three or four restaurants and two hotels. Very weird.

http://www.rwe.com/generator.aspx/konzern/language=en/id=426/konzern-home.htm

Petaluma, CA (where Rep Woolsey was once on the city council), wanted to try wastewater privatization

Sewer Stink: Petaluma tries wastewater privatization--again
http://metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/05.02.96/wastewater-9618.html

This turned out to be a battle between a Democratic-supporting engineering company (Johnnie Cochran related) vs. a Republican-supporting company (Dan Quayle related engineering company

How do you find out if these foreign companies have made political "contributions" ?

Also it seems that this privatization of sewage treatment plants has been going on for some time now, see NYT article from May 1995

Cities Enlisting Private Companies for Sewage Treatment
http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F30711FB3F5D0C768CDDAC0894DE494D81&n=Top%2fReference%2fTimes%20Topics%2fSubjects%2fP%2fPrivatization

Other public services are also on the pot for outsourcing/privatizing and it seems too many Dems have bought-into the the schemes since financing requires bonding (Wall St. investment banks would get a 1% of project cost as their 'fee') and pols would end up getting a kickback via these investment banking houses (you grease my palm, I'll grease yours).

Gotta run......

[cascadiance]

8. A word of caution... Filner might not be so innocent in this too...

I think that was probably a major reason that this issue wasn't looked at more closey during the special election where Bilbray won it to replace Cunningham. If it had been looked at, it might have been more clear to the voters what a revolving door car salesman lobbyist Bilbray was, but it also might have hurt Filner in 2006 too.

[sutz12]

9. "in Roswell New Mexico"

OMG, call Mulder and Scully! They are conspiring with the aliens!

:rofl: This shit just writes itself.

[lala_rawraw]

10. Thank you for posting....

I think the OVP should be called the syndicate

[Kurovski]

11. K&R.(nt)

[DemReadingDU]

12. morning kick