April 9, 2010

Poolbeg Housing For Votes Scheme Being Managed.

As soon as all the heat on the Dublin Docklands Developers Autocracy (DDDA) dies down Tammany Hall will be back in business at the Irish Glass Bottle Site.   

As of now the politicians are waiting for the honest NAMA scheme to replace the honest independent DDDA's schemes.  The local boundaries have already been honestly gerrymandered by a totally independent quango, absurdly dividing Sandymount in two. A major benefit for local politicians is the reinforcement of the class division between Ringsend & Sandymount.   The blatant divide & conquer gerrymander facilitates the vote-management by established ward masters. At €500 million of taxpayers money the votes from IGB are a bargain.

DDDAs so-called public consultation process for their developers Poolbeg Plan was a total circus, which they now indirectly admit.  During the consultation circus their brass-necked employees vehemently denied any conflicts of interest.  They also 're-purposed' curiously flawed work from DCC and pulled lots more strokes.  Judge McKechnie condemned DCC's work as "massaged" and "undue influence".  DDDA itself has been judged to have acted illegally ("ultra vires").




--------------------------------

Dockland homes plan put on hold

By Cormac Murphy
Monday April 05 2010
AMBITIOUS plans by Dublin docklands chiefs for a new urban quarter in Poolbeg are on hold.
The scheme, which would have seen 10,000 new homes being built, was to be constructed on lands including the controversial Irish Glass Bottle site.
However, the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) is conducting a re-evaluation of the project, delaying it significantly.
The Glass Bottle site was bought in 2006 for €412m by Becbay, a consortium headed by developer Bernard McNamara, who has since been hit by severe financial difficulties.
A neighbouring 12-acre site is owned by Fabrizia Developments, a company run by effectively insolvent developer Liam Carroll.
Labour's Kevin Humphreys, who is a DDDA council member and city councillor, said the entire Poolbeg scheme was "under review".
"I don't think anything is going to happen with that until the land is under one owner (NAMA)," he added.
However, he said the Glass Bottle site is the most likely one to be developed once the economy recovers, given its proximity to the city centre.
The DDDA told the Herald the preparation of the "Draft Poolbeg Planning Scheme and Environmental Impact Statement continued during 2009".
"Following the consultation period, 111 submissions were received which are under consideration," it stated.
It stated: "In light of the 2008 High Court judgment against the authority which inter alia addressed its dual mandate as a development and planning agency, the executive board have commissioned a review of the scheme specifically in regard to the procedure applied in its preparation and the development concept proposed."
As well as the thousands of new homes, the new quarter would have accommodated 16,000 workers in office space.
The proposals would have to be ratified by the Minister for the Environment.
comurphy@herald.ie
- Cormac Murphy

April 5, 2010

Community Gain For Little People Beside IGB

Community Gain For Little People Beside Irish Glass Bottle Site

The community will gain incinerator air pollution to add to truly massive NAMA-Poolbeg debts, IGB unemployment and deliberate institutional environmental vandalism and eyesore architectural conditioning.

Clanna Gael is an excellent GAA club located directly beside the IGB Glass Bottle site in Ringsend. The club provides genuine benefits to the local community.

Unfortunately the Galway Tent exploits the club - propaganda plaques and signs from the cabal directly responsible for  the €500 million IGB mess are everywhere.  Down the road the King's Shilling of Community Gain is also being hoored-up by the incinerator proposers.  Cynical local politicians smell votes.  Meanwhile parasitic speculators all across Poolbeg are being rescued by NAMA, for the little people's benefit of course.


Bertie formally opened a new club house for Clanna Gael a few years ago. The plaque says so.  So did the photo-ops.  In honour of Bertie's usage of the language, DDDA erected large signs proclaiming the repurbishment [sic] of the pitches and then went on with others to dump €500 million of the people's money into a hole in the ground directly over the GAA club's fence.



Invisible pollution in this area already exceeds safe levels.  Dublin Council's planned incinerator will increase air pollution at the GAA pitches - causing problems a few years or even decades later for the footballers and the hurlers. The most deadly pollution particles (PM0.1) are not monitored by EPA; the law does not force this measurement. 


Actual Community Gain: Twelve-Times Death Risk. 




Is it good to play vigorous sports at Clanna Gael?  The entrance to Clanna Gael is on Sean Moore Road.  Instruments near Sean Moore Road recorded dangerously high air pollution levels in March 2010, and have been doing so for a long time.  Compared to Tallaght it's twelve times more likely anyone breathing this air will have a heart attack or stroke, at some unknowable time in the future.  Alzheimers risk also increases.  The micro and nano particles from the air enter the bloodstream and travel to the brain where they may enter brain cells.  One particle could be enough.  Nobody knows.

EPA's simple instruments only weigh the less dangerous micro-particles; they do not count the number of very dangerous nano-particles.  Any observable damage occurs years later.  Nano-particles come from 'green' diesel cars and from incinerators.  An incinerator will increase the pollution and thus the health risks.  Removing diesel vehicles from the streets is not practical for the city.  But an incinerator is an unnecessary choice. 

So why did Dublin Council choose this polluted location for its proposed incinerator?  Did they consult the old financial regulator?  Or was the philistine scheme ordered from the galway tent? 



Irish Glass Bottle Transactions beside GAA Club:
  • Buyer of IGB Site:  DDDA Autocracy, and friends.
  • Seller of IGB Site/Lease:  Dublin Port Company.
  • Private Companies benefiting: Ardagh Glass, South Wharf.
  • Financier: Anglo-Irish Bank & AIB.
  • Planning Permission: DDDA Planning Repurbishment Projects Division of Anglo Irish Bank.

Once upon a time in November 6, 1998 The Phoenix reported Mr Paul Coulson's Irish Glass Bottle factory was under threat from a massive new glass factory opened by Mr Sean Quinn in Fermanagh. Solution found: In 2010 the factory became a fine €500 million NAMA asset.

After 1998 many cute wee hoors became involved with Anglo Irish Bank and DDDA.  Manic property speculation was practiced by insiders with inside knowledge and by others.  Then the Irish national bankruptcy happened.

In 2009 Australia's government used the IGB fiasco to lure skilled workers to the penal colony.

Near 2010's April Fools Day the new financial regulator put Mr Quinn's insurance company into administration (similar to 'Chapter 11') as it seemed the insurance company's reserves were moving into Anglo territory.  In 2008 Mr Quinn personally lost at least one billion Euro trying to save Anglo in a then secret deal involving ten special people.  In the past, billions were parked in Anglo by PTSB to repurbish Anglo's books.

Now in 2010 Anglo claims Quinn Insurance owes Anglo €3 billion and Anglo may buy Quinn insurance to save it.  One bankrupt saving another bankrupt?  This could be an April Fools Day joke or a farce or reality.  How would any outsider know? Based on past information-withholding, Anglo's accounts can certainly not be trusted.

Bertie's buddy was appointed by Bertie to be boss of Dublin Port Company.  Was this before the IGB site or its lease was traded to DDDA and the Becbay speculators.  IGB provided the Cooler, trading as Ardagh Glass a share of a few hundred million before he moved to Lausanne. Finance Minister Cowen correctly signed the necessary paperwork for DDDAs investment.  Dublin Port Company gained about €100 million for its pension fund.  Dublin Port Company is owned by the state of the Republic of Ireland.  DDDA is also owned by the state.

Legally the Port Company is supposed to restrict its work to Port Activities only.  That would be ships and containers and jobs for dockers.  The Port Company is allowing land contiguous with Dublin Bay's special area of nature protection to be used for incinerator construction, without environmental due diligence.  The faceless men and women have already destroyed an established nature habitat for protected wildlife.  

Repurbishing Guano Onto The DDDA's Projects


Cutting off the fresh water supply for Brent Geese is payback.  After all the Brent Geese have been repurbishing guano all over DDDA's repurbished pitches.



____________
Repurbishment:  1. The massaging of reports with the goal of obtaining a predetermined result; 2.the exercise of undue influence in public consultation circuses supposed to be conducted in the public interest; 3. shijting on the public;  4. shijting on the DDDA. 

April 3, 2010

Judge: Covanta Violated US Workers

" ... Covanta viciously punished these workers".
"This ruling lets the rest of the world know that, without question, that Covanta broke the law and will have to put things right."
Gary P. Sullivan, AFL-CIO.  March 2010.
 _____________


By Staff reports
Herald News Staff
Posted Mar 29, 2010 @ 11:59 AM
BRAINTREE, Mass., USA 

A National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge has found that Covanta Energy Corporation/SEMASS is guilty of numerous federal labor law violations, including withholding nearly $1 million in bonuses and wage increases from 140 workers at a plant in Wareham.

The ruling requires Covanta to repay the workers the monies owed, with interest, and to bargain with the workers’ union (Local 369) over terms and conditions of employment before making any changes. Union officials charged, and NLRB administrative law judge David I. Goldman upheld, that the company’s illegal actions caused employees to lose between 8 percent and 11 percent of their annual compensation.

The decision concerns the administrative phase of the charges against Covanta; the NLRB has also sought injunctive relief against Covanta in federal district court. Should the court rule against Covanta on this, Covanta will be forced to pay a portion of bonus and wage increase money owed the workers. The injunctive petition is still pending.

Gary P. Sullivan, president of Local 369, Utility Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO, hailed the NRLB decision. “This union has long known that Covanta viciously punished these workers because they organized and demanded dignity and a voice in the workplace," Sullivan siad. "This ruling lets the rest of the world know that, without question, that Covanta broke the law and will have to put things right.”

Nearly 150 employees at the West Wareham facility formed a union in May 2008 and joined Local 369, Utility Workers Union of America, AFL-CIO. In the nearly two years since that vote, the workers have been bargaining with Covanta toward a first contract. The unfair labor practices at issue in Judge Goldman's decision occurred in February 2009, and the union filed unfair labor practices at that time protesting the company's actions.

A copy of the decision is available at www.covantasemass369.org/notice/01-CA-45233.pdf.
Copyright 2010 Wicked Local Somerset. Some rights reserved

April 2, 2010

Irish People Skinned Again at IGB.

Community Gain For Billionaire Speculators Starts at Irish Glass Bottle Site.

From our Monkey, one of the whistleblowers inside DDDA Developers Autocracy.   Securely Skyping from NAMA HQ, rented from a treasured Property Speculator. 


  • Skinning 1940-70s:  Philistines bury Sandymount Strand bordering Ringsend-Irishtown-Sandymount villages under City Refuse Dump.
  • Skinning 1940s: Privately owned Irish Glass Bottle factory leased on public territory.
  • Skinning 2007: Glass Bottle Recycling Factory closed.  400 Fired.

  • Skinning 2007: IGB Site Lease: Private Investor gains €100s-millions from lease 'loophole' allegedly left open by a minister.
  • Skinning 2007-09: DDDA & Others dump €500 million into toxic IGB city dump site.
  • Skinning 2008-10: Poolbeg Planning Scam - DDDA bid to literally      dictate €5 Billion of no-appeal Poolbeg Planning .                               
  • Skinning 2007-2009: DCC's undue influence in a Poolbeg public planning process (Judge McKechnie).
  • Skinning 2010:  DDDA/Poolbeg schemes add €500 Million to €2 Billion to national debt.
  • Skinning 2010: NAMA launched at IGB site.   



Unlike our respected Finance Ministers, Mr Cowen and Mr Lenihan - both trained lawyers as is respected Willie - our Monkey does not have legal training.  So his report could be true, being based on gut-feel accounting fundamentals.  Long ago our Monkey correctly reported that taxpayers would be skinned at IGB by NAMA.  So now the deal has been done, on the back of a conveniently rotting banana skin.  Because of toxic pollution the IGB site has a negative value of say minus €50 million.  This is as good a reason as any for NAMA to acquire the toxic IGB site for its clients with taxpayers cash. 

When DDDA moves offices from the respectable Southside back to the Northside, where they came from, no documents will be lost or misfiled.  Nevertheless the good governance of SPV accounting could disguise the €500 million already dumped into the IGB hole in the ground as 87% of any number you like. Grab a banana from the DDDA tree.  Weigh it.  Apply 87%. 


SOLD TO TAXPAYER FOOLS

NAMA's Real Clients are Banks & Developers.
NAMA may state its clients are the taxpayers and the residents of Ireland.  However in reality NAMAs clients seem to be the property speculators and the fraudulent Inselaffe galway tent bankers -all funded by the taxpayers of Ireland.  In March 2010 NAMA seems to have said that it is acquiring bad property loans from its "clients" - some truth released in a faux pas.  With Lear Jets on permanent standby some NAMA clients recently moved to reside outside the legal jurisdiction of Ireland to Paris, London, Lausanne, Cape Cod, China.   Note that 'Client' is language as used by the priesthood of lawyers. 

NAMAs deal may well be "Community Gain" for billionaire property speculators.  Nevertheless taxpayers will break even after one or two hundred years, using nominal-Euro accounting tricks: Special Purpose Vehicle scams pioneered by Enron.

People are already googling for jobs in the waste-to-toxins incinerator, a neighbour 400 metres from the toxic IGB flats.  Councillors and TDs will buy votes in exchange for flats built in the toxic site and jobs in the incinerator.  By then the Galway Tent will have moved back to Tammany Hall.   Job well done.

________________
Disclosure:
Our Monkey is not a formally accepted legal professional, unlike former Finance Ministers Mr Cowen and current Finance Minister Mr Lenihan.  So the monkey's reporting could be totally true, massaged or not.  The monkey's understanding of finance fundamentals is strong - he knows his banana-coupons from his orange-coupons.  His financial-gut tell's him you don't directly compare Sterling mortgage rates to Euro rates, even though the Finance Minister does.

Our Monkey was amazed that property-supplement-funded Irish Times never ran a robust investigation into IGB before the scamming burst.

Our Monkey congratulates surprise 06:00 hours police raids, with government broadcaster crews in tow, on client houses for Commodore 64s.  All this only two years after €8 billion was parked from PTSB into Anglo designed to massage the books and the share price, without informing investors in New York ADRs, allegedly. 

Totally Useless Things Concerning Inselaffe Culture:  Our Monkey notes that Quinn Group has a glass factory competitor to IGB outside the jurisdiction to which recycled glass could be exported, without air-miles.  The Monkey claims Quinn related investors tried to buy shares in Anglo and has a €1 Billion accident.  The Monkey further claims that the replacement Financial Regulator put Quinn Insurance into administration close to April Fools Day.  Now Anglo Irish Bank is looking for circa €3 Billion from Quinn.  Otherwise the taxpayers will be buying an insurance company and a toxic hole in the ground.  The Monkey believes there is no connection between former AIB Chairman/CEO Quinn who sold the AIB Sports Grounds (public good) on Sandymount Strand to a private speculator, Zoe/Fabrizia/Carroll.  One of NAMA's first clients is the ZOE-Carroll Group, suffering a €2 Billion meltdown.  ZOE and megabankrupt Bank-of-Scotland-Ireland shared the same building in Parnell Street, Dublin.  AIB's Quinn is brother to former Finance Minister Quinn who honourably established DDDAs socially justified and honourable predecessor.  Liberties occurred years later on the strands liberties.

============================================================

Glass bottle site given 87% Nama 'haircut'

SIMON CARSWELL, Finance Correspondent
Sat, Apr 03, 2010

THE NATIONAL Asset Management Agency (Nama) has applied a “haircut” of 87 per cent to the loan provided by Anglo Irish Bank to buy the controversial Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend, Dublin in a €412 million transaction in 2006.

The loan will be among the first tranche of €10 billion in assets moving to Nama from the State-owned bank next weekend. Anglo and Nama had no comment to make the haircut or the transfer.

The discount reflects the collapse in the value of the property, which was written down to €50 million by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) – a drop of 88 per cent in value.

Anglo and Allied Irish Banks provided a €288 million loan to fund the purchase of the site, which involved developer Bernard McNamara, financier Derek Quinlan, the DDDA and private investors of Davy stockbrokers.

One of the three draft internal reports into the DDDA, which were recently disclosed, reduced the value of the authority’s 26 per cent share in the site to zero.

The discount on Anglo’s loan contributed to Nama applying a 50 per cent overall discount on its first loans being moved into Nama.

The bank reported a loss of €12.7 billion for the 15 months to the end of December this week after writing off €15.1 billion in bad loans, including €10.1 billion on loans moving into Nama.
The Government has injected €12.3 billion into Anglo to replenish its reserves after the losses wiped out its capital base.

The bank has said that it may need a further €10 billion and possibly more to cover a higher-than-expected average haircut on the loans moving into Nama as well as losses on non-Nama loans and to meet the new higher capital rules.

Nama said yesterday it had completed the transfer of the first loans from Bank of Ireland, buying assets with a face value of €1.93 billion for €1.26 billion, representing a discount of 35 per cent.
“The agency expects to complete the transfer of the remaining loans from all five institutions by the end of the year and no later than end February 2011, the deadline set by the EU Commission,” Nama said in a statement.

The agency has now bought loans with a face value of €2.74 billion from three financial institutions – €1.93 billion from Bank of Ireland, €670 million from Irish Nationwide building society and €140 million from EBS building society. The agency has applied a 37 per cent discount against the EBS loans and a 58 per cent haircut to Irish Nationwide’s.
Nama will acquire the first loans from AIB over this weekend, buying loans with a face value of €3.3 billion for €1.9 billion, representing a haircut of 43 per cent. Anglo will transfer some €10 billion in loans for €5 billion.

Some €16 billion in loans are being transferred to Nama in the first tranche for €8.5 billion, representing an average haircut of 47 per cent across the institutions.
The State effectively took control of Irish Nationwide this week with the injection of €100 million in return for special investment shares in the building society.

EBS is expected to find out over the coming week about when the institution will receive its special investment shares. However, the building society last week received a waiver, allowing EBS to fall below the threshold which dictates the minimum amount of capital that a lender must hold in reserve.
EBS has the derogation from the regulator until May 31st, allowing it to hold less than the minimum core tier 1 capital ratio – a measure of loss-absorbing reserves at a lender – of 4 per cent.

© 2010 The Irish Times

April 1, 2010

Goggling Covanta. Compliance Reporting - Harrisburg.

Does Covanta no longer include pollution compliance in its monthly reports for its incinerator in Harrisburg, PA., USA?  If its true Covanta has stopped reporting pollution compliance then what is the reason?

(See allegation in comment pasted below from local newspaper's website.  The 3 month old comment has not been reported for abuse, so perhaps it is true.  Harrisburg is near Three Mile Island's famous Nuke).





Where is Covanta's iPhone Pollution App?

Why is the pollution data obfuscated in a stone-age PDF file in an obscure corner of a website when "innovative" Covanta boasts about its wonderful technologies?  Why is the pollution data not provided online in a visually friendly format?  

Surely Covanta's fine employees in New Jersey dump Covanta's stock after seeing the charts on their iPhones.  After such inspiration, surely Covanta's wonderful R&D outfit can enhance Covanta's reputation by making pollution data totally exciting or even scary, with friendly charts available to smart phones.  



Imagine: simply point your GPS enabled camera phone at a Convanta chimney stack and instantly get real-time sophisticated visualisations for deadly particulates, PM-1.0s, PM-2.5s, PM-10s, furans, dioxins, NOX, SO2, toxic metals, and the downstream chemical reactions of the whole toxic mess.  That's called Goggling Convanta.


A sound app could analyse the explosions from the gas cylinders in the middle of the night, deciding all by itself whether to dial 911 or 999 or RyanAir.

Another iPhone App could keep a running total for all pollution fines paid by Covanta.  Contrasted to the higher cost of actually correcting the core technology problems.


Covanta Open Day











______________________

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2009/12/trade_publication_ranks_harris.html

Posted by hbgbill
December 08, 2009, 2:03PM
Sound environmental record? Why did the Authority budget for 2010 $1.7 million for air pollution violation and $75,000 for continuous emission monitoring violations? If the environmental compliance is so good, why does Covanta no longer include compliance in its monthly reports?

http://www.hbgauthority.com/Monthly%20Reports/monthly%20reports.html
scroll down to Resource Recovery and compare pre-May 2009 with last six months.

Massaged Truthiness: Policy on waste management in crisis, says April Fools Day Expert.

The Irish Times is again publishing massaged stories dressed up as "expert".  

The spin is possibly again taken directly from the PR officer of the incinerator promoters (who apparently don't answer the phone), an apparent Irish Times practice at the oral hearings.   

 

Irish Times April Fools Day Headline:

Policy on waste management in crisis, says expert 

The Irish Times - Thursday, April 1, 2010.   TIM O'BRIEN.


The newspaper makes no critical observations on the article's curious one-sided claims on behalf of an organisation whose expert-employee was adjudicated to have massaged the truth and to have used undue influence in a public process (Judge McKechnie on DCC's Twomey). 


For instance, Mr Rudden of RPS seems to make uncontested claims about the financial viability of incineration.  

Covanta loudly proclaims the awesome effectiveness of filters on its stacks, but seems to refuse to publish a list of pollutants with quantities.   The promoters refuse to produce a clear diagram claiming its impossible.  Does Covanta always blame-shift to house-persons when explosions occur as in a Covanta facility in USA in March 2010?  Their engineer at the open day in Dublin in January 2010pointed liability at residents instead of at absurd industry gaurantees of no health-damaging air pollution.

Curiously Mr Rudden's April Fools Day article totally omits any mention of the health costs imposed on future generations from premature deaths in polluted Poolbeg.  Poolbeg is already above legal limits: the incinerator itself and the hundreds of additional trucks per day will push the pollutiuon burden, possibly past a critical tipping point. 

The US EPA prices a human life at $8 million.  Mr Rudden's RPS and other 'consultants' have been paid €25 million to spin for incineration.  It is quite likely there is a lucrative construction-phase bonus and a completion bonus on offer.  After that it is well known that Covanta fully legally hires people after they retire from their old public service jobs.   

Is the Irish Times revenue still controlled by the galway tent cabal?  The property boom kept the paper in business, a boom the patriotic paper did not meaningfully investigate.  The cost to Ireland is €80 Billion  (€80,000,000,000).


What is the cost of 100 premature deaths per year for each of twenty five years?   Twenty Billion?  Nobody knows.  Except for people paid by DCC to claim there is not any risk to health.  What did the bankers say about risk?



Engineers Ireland Leveraged by Incineration Industry?

April 1, 2010.

Engineers Ireland (EI) has in the past published a "report" strongly supporting incineration.

  • Is it ethical that the publication does not appear to shout out that RPS's Mr Rudden is a VP of Engineers Ireland?  
  • Is it ethical that the publication does not highlight that RPS & others have been paid €25 million by an autocratic Dublin City Council to promote incineration at Poolbeg?
  • Is it ethical that the Engineers Ireland publication does not appear to shout out that report authors are from the incineration industry?


Has Engineers Ireland now been placed alongside other Irish Institutions which some people are wary of?  Has the ordinary membership of EI been unduly leveraged by the waste-to-toxins industry?  Did anyone ask the members opinions before the report was published using their good names?  Is EI relevant outside Ireland, and outside the small world of Irish government contracts often managed from the Galway Tent?

From Engineers Ireland's website:

A national voice     http://www.iei.ie/membership/benefits-of-membership/national-voice/
We aim to be the trusted and influential voice of engineering in Ireland, providing members with a forum to highlight and influence issues that matter to engineering, at a national level. By engaging with fellow members and supporting submissions to Government, your professional voice will be heard.

Government submissions

We speak for the engineering profession on all national policy issues by submitting many reports, articles, and presentations to Government and official bodies every year. Topics covered include infrastructure, energy, budgets, education and the overall development of the Irish economy.

Part of the EI report's curious self-justifying rationale seems to be that the proposed Poolbeg waste-to-toxins incinerator will supply heat to housing, and who could argue with such a worthy goal for the suffering socialist masses. However in practice Dublin Council has apparently made a contract which will supply the public domain good to a socialised-billionaire-speculator's offices. Mr Rudden has waffle and no numbers about waste-to-toxins energy in a totally biassed Irish Times article (April 1, 2010).

Is it ethical that the Engineers Ireland publication does not shout out the fact that report authors are from the incineration industry?
  • Veolia.

Covanta has purchased Veolia North America.  Indaver is a Belgian incinerator operator with proposals to build a toxic incinerator in a flood-zone in Cork Harbour.  Toni Soprano's waste business is not mentioned.

Was paid-to-promote-incineration Burke a past-president of EI, and if so why is this kept under the radar?



Engineers Ireland Code of Ethics

Engineers Ireland Code of Ethics outlines the standards and conduct that all Engineers Ireland members must adopt in their professional lives.

The Code includes this part:
  • Relations with colleagues, clients, employers and society in general
  
Here is what Judge McKechnie said in an 'unapproved' judgement in December 2009/January 2010 on Dublin City Council's Matt Twomey and his close work directing RPS 'reports' & for which RPS's Mr Rudden seems to be the director:
"Massaging of reports by Matt Twomey, which were later, in their edited versions, released publicly, is a strong indicator to me of unacceptable influence in a process supposedly carried out in the public interest,"

McKechnie said in his 'unapproved' judgment. [Sunday Business Post]

Here is an example of paid 'spin' from Mr Rudden, VP Engineers Ireland, VP RPS and paid-incinerator-promoter:
"There is no credible evidence that modern incinerators impose any risk to health."      PJ RUDDEN, Director, RPS Group, Ireland.  Irish Times, January 12, 2010

Look at that statement and compare it to Big Tobacco statements.

During a cynical DCC open-day in 2010, Covanta's engineer was aparently unable to name even one modern Covanta incinerator - even though he previously claimed over a thirty minute period, apparently, they were all modern due to continuous improvement and an awesome R&D team.

DCC refuses to conduct base line health studies.  Pollution released into the air in USA by Covanta most definitely poses more than "any" risk to human health.  The engineers excuse was that mechanical systems will always have failures.  That confirms a real threat to health, especially with regulation standards as practiced in Ireland.

Does Mr Rudden's statement match or exceed the ethics standards of Engineers Ireland?  Does the statement fully inform the public?  Is the statement true or false?  


_________________________

From EI Website:
Guidelines for making a complaint about the conduct of an Engineers Ireland member.

All members of Engineers Ireland must comply with our Code of Ethics. Members of the public who are dissatisfied with service received from a member of Engineers Ireland may make a formal complaint to the institution.   

How to make a formal complaint:   See EI website.

EI Council, 2009-2010 session.
The Council is regulated by the Engineers Ireland Bye-Laws and Code of Ethics.
Engineers Ireland Officers
  • President: Dr Chris Horn, Chartered Engineer
  • Vice President: Martin Lowery, Chartered Engineer
  • Vice President: PJ Rudden, Chartered Engineer



_____________________
  

Since 2007 he is assisting the Corrib Partners in planning, routing, EIS and construction supervision of the modified Onshore Pipeline Route in Mayo including communications and stakeholder aspects.


Covanta
Covanta with an established dodgy record of repeated fines for breaking US pollution laws and has recently increased the money for "lobbying government".  Covanta also legally hires "ex" government or ex-regulator officials.
 


Massaged Irish Media

The Irish Times seems to publish massaged press releases more or less directly from Dublin City Council/RPS, whilst ignoring or censoring competing and accurate viewpoints.  During the property boom the Irish Times was largely funded by property supplements.  Today it needs DCC adverts. 


Socialised Comunity Gain for Speculators

DCC has a contract to supply heat from Poolbeg to a socialised-speculator miles away in Dublin's Docklands (the speculator possibly now hanging out in China has been inducted into the €80 billion national bankruptcy process and owns the NAMA treasury building; or perhaps vice versa).  Anglo's planning department for Poolbeg, DDDA, is now disgraced.  The offshored-cabal directing our native politicians governed Anglo, DDDA, DCC, Dublin Port Company and other speculators in the Banama Republic of Poolbeg.  Poolbeg scams such as the closed IGB (glass bottle recycling factory) will cost taxpayers €1 billion to €2 billion.  This same faceless cabal is pulling strings for the incinerator - all behind closed doors and for curious reasons.

Wasters Threatened by Covanta

Florida officials have stopped promoting recycling.  They cite the need to feed Covanta's waste-to-toxins incinerator to avoid massive financial penalties.  


Dublin City Councils keenest minds have a secret contract with Covanta - it is so clever and so honest they are afraid to tell taxpayers about it.

__________________________

If Sweden's Curt Degerman had been in Florida he would have been out of business.

Published in Investing on 31 March 2010
Through investing, even a tramp can become a millionaire...
Earlier this week, news emerged of a remarkable man who managed to amass a sizeable fortune while living rough.

Curt Degerman, from the Swedish town of Skellefteå, died of a heart attack 18 months ago at the age of 60. Local people knew Degerman as a tramp that scraped together a living by collecting scrap metal and food and drink cans for recycling. For 40 years, he lived a solitary existence, rummaging through bins for recyclables and eating leftovers from fast-food restaurants.

However, after his death, it emerged that "Tin Can Curt" was an avid reader of the financial pages and an astute investor. By reading Dagens Industri -- the Swedish equivalent of the Financial Times -- in his local library, Degerman invested his collected deposits carefully. On his death, his fortune was estimated at more than £1.1 million.

___________________________

Full article:   The Tale Of The Millionaire Tramp


Harrisburg Incinerator Nearer to Bankruptcy - Covanta Contract.

Mutual Insurance: You hit us, we hit youse.  Are the bonds insured by Hamilton, Bermuda- based Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp.

Covanta has a real good feeling. 

____________________________________

Source: bloomberg.com


Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to Miss April Loan Payment


By Dunstan McNichol

March 30 (Bloomberg) -- Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the capital of the sixth-most-populous U.S. state, will miss an April 1 loan payment to Covanta Holding Corp., said Michael Casey, the city’s interim business manager. 

Harrisburg faces $68 million in debt service payments this year connected to a trash-to-energy incinerator that Fairfield, New Jersey-based Covanta operates. The payments on the $282 million in incinerator debt are about four times what the city of about 47,000 raises through property taxes, according to its budget

The city is scheduled to pay Covanta $637,500 April 1. The payment is the fifth installment on a $20.7 million Covanta advance the city guaranteed in 2008 on behalf of the incinerator’s manager, the Harrisburg Authority. Covanta runs or has an investment in 64 energy-generation facilities globally, including 45 like the Harrisburg plant that convert waste to energy, according to its 2009 annual report

“We have the cash, but we do not plan to pay them on the first of April,” Casey said in a phone interview today. “They are working with us on a forbearance program for the rest of the year,” meaning a plan to give the city some leeway on debt payments, he said. 

Casey said the city is talking with the authority, Dauphin County, a guarantor of some of the bonds, and Hamilton, Bermuda- based Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp., their insurer, on a plan to restructure the debt while the city draws up a recovery strategy.
Asset Sales 

That plan will include selling unspecified city assets, raising the county’s trash-dumping fees at the incinerator and refinancing a portion of a $34 million working capital loan that is scheduled to be paid in full in December, Casey said. Mayor Linda Thompson isn’t considering a bankruptcy filing, he said. 

“And frankly, we see no need of it, the way things are going,” he said.
Covanta is cooperating with the city and is awaiting its recovery measures, Jim Klecko, regional vice president for Covanta, said in a telephone interview today from his office in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. 

They have given us a real good feeling that they don’t expect to go into bankruptcy,” he said. 

In addition to the debt service, the city owes another $12 million in payments on eight series of bonds and notes of its own, according to budget documents. 

Thompson didn’t return messages seeking comment today. 

Missed Payments
Covanta, whose chairman is Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell, reported annual revenue of $1.55 billion in 2009.
The city has missed two payments on the incinerator debt this year.
On March 1 the authority tapped debt service reserves to cover $2 million in payments due on its Series 1998A and 2003 Series A, B and C bonds after Harrisburg failed to honor its guarantee, according to March 8 notices to bondholders. A $425,000 payment, for which there is no such reserve, is due May 1, according to a schedule prepared for the City Council by Cincinnati-based Management Partners Inc., which was hired by Pennsylvania to develop a recovery plan for the city. 

Dauphin County, where Harrisburg is located, has sued the city seeking $15 million, including reimbursement of $8.9 million in incinerator swap and debt service payments it has made on the city’s behalf since last year, according to the county’s legal complaint

City Controller Dan Miller, who has advocated seeking Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy protection instead of selling assets, said he doesn’t think the city has enough cash to make the Covanta payment along with $4 million in city bond payments and a $1 million payroll that are also due April 1.
“I think we’re going to have trouble making those payments, let alone the $600,000 to Covanta,” he said in a telephone interview from his office in Harrisburg today.
Harrisburg’s credit rating was slashed to five levels below investment grade in February by Moody’s Investors Service.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dunstan McNichol in Trenton, New Jersey, at dmcnichol@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: March 30, 2010 18:25 EDT

Dump Covanta, CVA

Did you dump Covanta stock on January 16, 2009?   If not, your second and last chance to dump CVA was January 15, 2010 at $19.34.


Toni Orlando's boss Mr Sam Zell sold a few Covanta shares in March 2009.
5-Mar-09SZ INVESTMENTS LLCBeneficial Owner (10% or more)558,000DirectSale at $13.61 per share.$7,594,380
5-Mar-09ZELL SAMUELDirector558,000IndirectSale at $13.61 per share.$7,594,380
4-Mar-09SZ INVESTMENTS LLCBeneficial Owner (10% or more)1,008,700DirectSale at $14.16 per share.$14,283,192
4-Mar-09ZELL SAMUELDirector1,008,700IndirectSale at $14.16 per share.$14,283,192



Covanta's long term debt including liabilities is most recently stated at about $3.05 billion ($3,050,000,000).  That's thirty times the profits for 2009.  Hopes are high for a rescue from the Dublin incinerator.

Covanta's total revenue for 2009 was stated at $1.5 billion ($1,550,467,000).

Net income for 2009 was just $0.1 billion ($101,645,000) which you could earn recycling cans many times over like the milionaire tramp in Sweden who dined out in waste bins.

Image: Mr Zell of Covanta.  Not the Millionaire Swedish Recycling Tramp.

Covanta's finance director, aka CFO, fled to Alberta in March 2010.  But you knew that on Jan 15, 2010.


UPGRADES & DOWNGRADES HISTORY
DateResearch FirmAction
16-Oct-09 OppenheimerDowngrade
18-Sep-09 Barclays CapitalDowngrade
24-Jul-09 Ardour CapitalDowngrade


Covanta Downward Momentum Looks to Continue (CVA) - 3/25/2010 7:23:48 PM  By Chip Brian, SmarTrend Analytics Team

SmarTrend identified a Downtrend for Covanta (NYSE:CVA) on January 28, 2010 at $17.99. In approximately 2 months, Covanta has returned 8.4% as of Thursday's closing price of $16.49.
Covanta is currently below its 50-day moving average of $17.64 and below its 200-day moving average of $17.48. Look for these moving averages to decline to confirm the company's downward momentum. 

_______________________

MAJOR DIRECT HOLDERS (FORMS 3 & 4)
HolderSharesReported
ZELL SAMUEL19,5007-May-09
SZ INVESTMENTS LLC12,607,6826-Mar-09
BARSE DAVID MICHAEL483,07724-Jul-09
PATE WILLIAM363,3777-May-09
ORLANDO ANTHONY J272,11719-Mar-10


TOP INSTITUTIONAL HOLDERS
HolderShares% OutValue*Reported
THIRD AVENUE MANAGEMENT, LLC9,261,2895.98$167,536,71831-Dec-09
Blue Ridge Capital Hlgds LLC/Blue Ridge Cap Offshore Hldgs L8,662,1175.59$156,697,69631-Dec-09
NEUBERGER BERMAN GROUP, LLC6,729,8934.34$121,743,76431-Dec-09
MORGAN STANLEY5,171,4253.34$93,551,07831-Dec-09
BAMCO INC.4,815,5733.11$87,113,71531-Dec-09
VANGUARD GROUP, INC. (THE)4,249,6172.74$76,875,57131-Dec-09
SOROS FUND MANAGEMENT LLC4,143,9742.67$74,964,48931-Dec-09
S.A.C. CAPITAL ADVISORS, LLC3,804,7872.46$68,828,59631-Dec-09
PRINCIPAL FINANCIAL GROUP, INC.3,521,9182.27$63,711,49631-Dec-09
BARCLAYS PLC3,340,0802.16$60,422,04731-Dec-09