(LA PAZ COUNTY, ARIZONA) — Alliance Metals USA would like to address inaccuracies and biases in the Arizona Republic’s November 29, 2019 story “Arizona environmental regulators grant permit for aluminum plant in La Paz County”.
The story — which centers on the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality granting an air quality permit to Alliance Metals USA — states the company plans on selling recycled products to ‘military industries’.
Alliance Metals expects recycled aluminum sales to military and defense industries to account for only a small fraction of sales, if anything at all.
The story also lists Jacob Gitman as one of leaders of Alliance Metals USA.
This is false. Jacob Gitman is a shareholder in the company and is not involved in the day-to-day operations company.
The Arizona Republic article also references Jacob Gitman being born in Russia. How is this relevant to the company’s air quality permit being approved by DEQ? Jacob Gitman is an American citizen. Why doesn’t the story reference that Alliance Metals USA President Larry Gitman was born in Florida or the birthplace of lead critic Gary Saiter? The inclusion of Jacob Gitman’s birthplace gives an obvious negative slant to the story. Does the Arizona Republic routinely list the birthplaces or birth countries of others in its stories?
The Arizona Republic story also gives extraordinary space and ‘airtime’ to Gary Saiter, the lead opponent of Alliance Metals USA’s proposal to bring new local jobs and economic development to La Paz County.
What the Arizona Republic does not report is that Mr. Saiter is President of the Wenden Domestic Water Improvement District.
La Paz County residents in Wenden and Salome will also know Gary Saiter from a recent notice they got from the Wenden Water District about drinking water violations and potentially cancer-causing contaminants in their drinking water.
Here is a link to the DEQ mandated violation notice: http://static.azdeq.gov/community/dwpn_az0415023.pdf
The notice is about potentially dangerous drinking water supplied by the Saiter-led Wenden Water District and safe drinking water violations.
The violation notices from Saiter’s Wenden Water District came after recent tests and warns residents their drinking water may have high levels of TTHM (Trihalomethanes) and HAA5 (Halocetic Acid), according to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. Both contaminants can cause health problems and have been linked to higher rates of cancer.
Drinking water problems and violations have happened before in Wenden. The Environmental Working Group reports the Wenden Water District’s water has 24 times its recommended levels of nitrates (which can be especially harmful to pregnant women and babies) and 18 times its recommended levels of TTHM.
Worries about water (including high arsenic levels) long forced students at Wenden Elementary to use plastic water bottles. Gary Saiter is also the President of the Wenden Elementary School District.
The result was thousands of water bottles from the school filling a local landfill, according to local media reports.
Yet, the Arizona Republic and other media rely on Mr. Saiter as their only source of opposition to a project approved by the Department of Environmental Quality.
Why does the media listen and rely so heavily on Mr. Saiter when he has a deficient record on water quality at the Wenden Water District?
But why let those facts and the Department of Environmental Quality’s approval of Alliance Metals USA’s air quality permit get in the way of conspiracy theories and stopping new jobs from coming to La Paz County?