Truth behind Freedom Industries Bancruptcy



Put this in writing for the record. Please.

Ok, I try to write at least something:

According to the Washington Post:

Pennsylvania coal mining executive Cliff Forrest is the new owner of Freedom Industries since Dec. 31. He discovered that one of the six-decade-old storage tanks he had acquired was leaking a toxic chemical into the Elk River that supplies water to about 300,000 West Virginians.

It took just one more week for Freedom Industries, facing about 20 lawsuits and a Justice Department investigation, to declare bankruptcy. On Friday, the besieged company filed for protection under Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Charleston, W. Va.

It’s been a pretty good business niche. Freedom Industries has bought and stored chemicals from the likes of Eastman Chemical, an international $12 billion business, and Georgia Pacific Chemicals, a unit of the Koch brothers’ Georgia Pacific, a global paper product giants. Then Freedom Industries sells to companies such as Alpha Natural Resources, one of the country’s biggest coal producers. More than 100 plants in West Virginia use froth flotation. Forrest, through another firm he owns, paid roughly $20 million to acquire Freedom Industries and orchestrate its Dec. 31 merger with four tiny distribution, blending and storage firms that act as middle men between big chemical and big coal companies, according to a person close to the company but not authorized to speak for it. He added that Forrest just “had the misfortune of buying a plant just before all hell broke loose.” Freedom Industries issued a statement on Jan. 10. ... Chief executive Gary Southern, suffering from pneumonia, made one brief and awkward appearance sipping from a water bottle before TV cameras. Two days later, Charles Ryan, the crisis public relations firm Freedom Industries hired, dropped the company. ...

Temin said such companies “go underground, though unfortunately in this case their underground is toxic.” And if they’re truly avoiding the spotlight, then “tomorrow you will no longer be Freedom Industries, it will be Liberty Industries or Apple Pie Industries.”

So what Chris Hayes said is that today the company Mounteneer Funding LLC has been incorporated by the same person Cliff Forrest who owns Freedom Industries just since DEc 31rst.

So from here on I can't write anything that I feel I understand. Therefore I asked others to try to find out what it means. What is the "profit" for Mounteneer Funding LLC in doing this? And what is the relation with the water treatment facilities of WV?

According to Huffington Post West Virginia's water is owned in a private-public partnership:

In late 2009, the state gave final approval [PDF] for a public-private partnership between Boone County and West Virginia American Water Company -- the utility that owns the treatment facility and water distribution network shut down since last Thursday -- for a multi-million dollar project to run water lines out to Prenter and nearby communities. The project was mostly paid for by a federal Housing and Urban Development grant, with Boone County and West Virginia American Water Company making up the difference. Not a penny was paid by the coal companies that polluted the water in the first place.

...

The real motivation for the project is found further down in the engineering report, which details the expected economic development benefits: "The extension Project will help satisfy mine permitting requirements for Arch Coal's proposed Mountain Laurel mine."

...

The West Virginia chemical spill is a cautionary tale for communities all over the country where multinational companies are coming in and buying up municipal water utilities to manage people's drinking water supply for profit. And factors beyond groundwater pollution by the coal industry are driving those trends, such as systemic under-investment in public water systems by federal, state and local governments, and the rapaciousness with which private companies, aided by political favoritism and lobbying, are pursuing expansion of their influence, customer base and profit margins.

All I understand is that the privatization of the water is profitable for the coal companies that want to implement new mining technologies of the proposed Mountain Laurel mine. Better they have all the water they need under control, I guess...

oh man, that's all so complicated for me to understand and sooooo wrong. Some professional writer put this all together, please.