Wednesday, July 29, 2009

GOP seems to be forgetting something about Nixon, e.coli controversy

It did not take long for the Missouri Republican Party to jump on Springfield News-Leader reporter Chad Livengood's revelation that DNR e-mails indicate a top official was planning to tell Gov. Jay Nixon about e. coli contamination in the Lake of the Ozarks. The GOP news release is printed below, but it fails to mention one thing- Chad Livengood picked up the information from his story from e-mails obtained via a freedom of information request.

That same request would not have been likely to get results during Gov. Matt Blunt's administration and would definitely have not been fulfilled that quickly:

A review of e-mails and meeting minutes suggests that Governor Jay Nixon was involved in a decision to purposely withhold information from the public about E. coli in the Lake of the Ozarks, according to today’s Springfield News-Leader.

The article reports that Joe Bindbeutel, then-Deputy DNR Director and longtime Nixon confidante, requested the secret E coli data for a meeting in the governor’s office. The minutes of a later meeting between DNR employees and the Lake of the Ozarks Watershed Alliance declare that the tests have “drawn the attention of the Director of DNR as well as Governor Nixon.”

“The evidence continues to mount that Jay Nixon and his top officials knew about dangerous levels of E. coli in the Lake of the Ozarks and deliberately withheld the information from Missourians,” said Lloyd Smith, Executive Director of the Missouri Republican Party. “This was a grave breach of the public trust—yet Jay Nixon has not taken responsibility. We hope that the investigations being conducted by the State Senate and the Attorney General reveal the truth about what Nixon knew and when he knew it.”

From the News-Leader:

Nixon's office says Bindbeutel visited their Capitol office on June 4 for a meeting about energy policy with an industry lobbyist and deputy legislative director Kristy Manning -- not water quality or E. coli… But that doesn't explain why, according to two e-mails, Bindbeutel told a deputy director of DNR's division of environmental quality that he needed the E. coli report for a meeting in the governor's office… The e-mail that ties Bindbeutel to a meeting in the governor's office was sent by a veteran bureaucrat. "Joe said he needed it for the meeting in the Gov. Office tomorrow," Pabst wrote in a June 3 e-mail to Templeton's secretary.”
“Included in the News-Leader's request for documents were notes from a June 12 meeting between Bindbeutel, Pabst and other DNR employees and members of the Lake of the Ozarks Watershed Alliance , who volunteer to collect water samples for DNR as part of a five-year study of the lake's health funded by AmerenUE. The minutes offer a hint that the governor's office may have been made aware of the high levels of E. coli earlier than Nixon or his staff have publicly acknowledged… Bindbeutel is paraphrased as saying, ‘the recent water testing has drawn the attention of the Director of DNR as well as Governor Nixon,’ according to the minutes, which were taken by a LOWA volunteer.”

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous5:18 PM

    So you're saying it's okay that the Nixon administration allowed THOUSANDS of people to swim in toxic waters just because they turned over information they are required to turn over by law??

    You are as hopelessly twisted as Jay and his cronies if that is your logic.

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  2. You need to do some thinking before you write. In the first place, I was one of the first bloggers to latch on to Chad Livengood's story earlier today. If you want somebody to parrot everything you believe and agree with you 100 percent of the time, please leave this blo and find yourself another one. The e-mail comment is legitimate and needs to be raised...especially when it is in reference to a Republican Party news release. I plan to continue following the e. coli situation, Whether you read about it here or not, frankly I don't care.

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  3. Anonymous7:20 PM

    "That same request would not have been likely to get results during Gov. Matt Blunt's information..." (?) - Matt Blunt's information what is that?
    ...and would definitely have not been fulfilled that quickly.

    How do you know that - Oh, I forgot this is Randy Turner...who sees all, knows all, understands all,,,even though it never happens or because he decrees things as he wants them to be...Hail to King Randy!!!

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  4. Sorry, that should have been administration, but history indicates Chad Livengood's request would not have been responded to as quickly during the Blunt administration. All it took to figure that out was common sense.

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