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Wednesday, November 26, 1997 Guest: Donald Wallace, Director, Oxford Green   This session was a presentation made of late breaking information found by the environmental group, Oxford Green. The photographs used in Donald Wallace�s presentation will be available on Monday, December 1, 1997 on Anderson & Armstrong�s web page. See the December 1, 1997 update for the link.   Introductory comments from Elizabeth Jones, Information Officer:   Our guest has some concerns for his safety in presenting this information. We are coming to you tonight from an undisclosed location, and plan to ensure Don's safety. At this time, I would like to present Donald Wallace, Director of Oxford Green. Thank you for being here tonight, Don. We appreciate the risk you are taking and your sharing your findings with us. I'll turn the microphone over to you now. Let me know when you are ready for questions.   Donald Wallace, Director of Oxford Green, presentation:   Thank you EJ and thank you ladies and gentlemen. We've stumbled onto some significant news pertaining to the Dickerson property. I'd like to go over what we've found and how we've found it. You may be aware of the delays surrounding the Environmental Impact Statement pertaining to the proposed development of the property. At Oxford Green we've been following this case for months and pushed the EIS from the start. We've been very suspicious of the long delays in issuing the EIS and decided to investigate.   On November 1, three Oxford Green members including myself inspected the Dickerson property with unexpected results. We took some pictures of our findings and we'd like to share them with you with the help of what they call here a 'clicker.'   This is the first photo we took when we arrived at the property. We approached the property and were surprised by the heavy truck imprints shown here. We were told that no development was occurring here but this obviously is a recently heavily trafficked site. This is the entrance of the Dickerson property showing heavy truck imprints.   Second photo: Here, we found quite a bit of junk like this at first and we assumed that trucks were hauling in refuse, taking advantage of the abandoned site. We had known that this location was being used as an unofficial dumping place for abandoned cars and trash. We found that and more.   Third photo: At the side of a hill beyond the trash dump we found this large can, rusted out. The picture doesn't show it well, but the soil was very discolored with rust and blue hues. Note how the flora is particularly sickly here We decided to investigate further beyond the hill.   Fourth photo: On the other side we found picture #4. Dozens of these rusted out drums were thrown haphazardly around the property - this particular drum was only covered by a plastic tarp material. Some of our pictures didn't come out, which showed the number of these barrels.   Fifth photo: While most of the drums are unmarked, this particular drum was marked C/S as you can see.   Sixth Photo: We couldn�t guess what this substance was. Fortunately, Sam (Underwood) accompanied us. Sam often takes soil and water samples for the nearby Save Our Streams chapter. He had plastic containers and gloves in his RV which allowed us to take samples of this noxious gunk.   The sign was a posted no trespassing sign. Now, quite a few of these drums were clearly leaking their contents into the soil. Erosion and rain patterns clearly indicated severe runoff of whatever this stuff was into the watershed.   The samples were taken to the University of Mississippi labs for analysis. We got the results of the analysis back this Monday (24th). Those results prompted my own concerns for my safety here tonight. What we found was a truly noxious compound of three deadly toxins. The analysis showed clearly that the drums contain a mixture of the germicide hexachlorophene (8%) 2,4,5,T (14%) a powerful herbicide and the worst news of all, 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-P- Dioxin 2,3,7,8-TCDD (23%) otherwise known simply as 'dioxin.'   Dioxin is called by most authorities the most deadly artificial chemical known. Now what is significant about this are two things. First, we have a major environmental crisis here in Oxford and second this waste was not put here by a small operation. The herbicide and germicide found are only manufactured by large chemical companies and dioxin is only produced by manufacturing processes of these chemicals. This is not a case of some good ole local boys dumping some trash. A BIG player put this junk here and deliberately. You don't put the most dangerous substance on Earth someplace without full well knowing you did it.   What also makes me nervous is that I spoke to Sheriff Lamar about this. I spoke to him on election day and inquired about the status of the EIS. I underscored the importance of getting it finished by telling him what we found. I had no idea how serious the contents were then, however, so I told him he'd get the results as soon as we did. Of course that didn't work out. He did say he would check into after the election.   After getting the results I called Sheriff Sheldon's office yesterday but apparently he was out of the office and I haven't been able to talk to him. I believe that Sheriff Lamar's death could very well be connected to this. Sheriff Lamar was a man of his word. If he said he would look into something, I believed him. Perhaps he looked too closely.   There is no case of toxic waste dumping in the country where the owner of the dump didn't know full well what was being dumped. I think Reed Chambeau is in this up to his ears. We do know some things about Chambeau now. One of his properties in Emelle Alabama. 120 families were evacuated by the EPA when it was discovered that seepage from the nearby hazardous waste dump contaminated the tenants' water supply.   We also found out that Chambeau's property in New Orleans got razed by a mysterious fire in '94 that killed three people. One of those people was James Shippenham, Chambeau's former business partner. Shippenham's widow is currently suing Chambeau for her husband's share of the business, which apparently fell to Chambeau by a business arrangement made shortly before the fire. I believe the name C/S and Chambeau and Shippenham's names may be more than coincidence.   What has me frankly scared is that this can't be just Chambeau. He does not have the assets or the clout that is behind a major chemical operation. There is a much larger picture here with bigger fish in the background. To pull this off, local politicians need to have been bought off. The delays in submitting the environmental impact statement is much clearer as well. This whole thing stinks literally and figuratively, with lots of people involved. Oxford Green is convinced we have a conspiracy.   We've called in Anderson and Armstrong Agency to help nail this for us. Meanwhile, I don't mind telling you I'm real nervous. The next step is for A&A to track the business connections here... They're on the trail of who this "C/S" is and whether they're connected with Chambeau directly. This is a battle we can't afford to lose, and I'm afraid Sheriff Lamar may well have been an early casualty.   At this point I'd like to take any questions you might have.   Question and Answer Session:   Q: Why haven't you called in the Environmental Protection Agency? A: We don't know who to trust at this point. Remember, we just got the results back Monday. I for one am reeling a little.   Q: I had a question: Is it possible that the Conspiracy is on a nationwide level? A: Yes it is. I'm not aware of any chemical operations close to Oxford that could produce this stuff.   Comment: If that's the case, then we are in big trouble. This has turned from a kidnapping to a Conspiracy.   Q: Can you not trace the barrels from the number located on them? Somewhere there is a pro number that will match those barrels. A: We didn't find any legible numbers. Some of the drums are in very poor condition. All we have is the C/S identifier and we're working on that.   Q: How could Gilbert be unaware of the barrels at the site? A: The topography of the property makes it possible to miss these barrels. Where kids are known to party there, they wouldn't see them at all. I'm not sure what Gilbert knows and doesn't know, however.   Comment: Maybe Gilbert got scared and wanted it all to stop before someone else got hurt.   Q: Please, Don, keep a journal for us? A: Are you suggesting I might not be around to speak for myself? You can bet we are going to get this information out and wide open. Sorry about the typos tonight, gang, I'm a little nervous, make that big time nervous.