Public Health Action Alert – Exide’s “Community Meeting” on Wednesday

Please come and insist that the clean-up of the Exide lead smelter be open to public notice and comment, and not done behind closed doors.

Exide is hosting a hastily called "public meeting" on demolition and dust control plans for its former Frisco lead smelter Wednesday night beginning at 7 pm at the Frisco Depot in the Historical District, 6499 Paige Street.

Among other things, Exide wants to permanently leave a waste landfill in central Frisco with approximately nine million pounds of smelter waste inside, instead of trucking it out.

The city is letting the company have its way, even though this landfill in downtown will be an impediment to economic development and a constant threat to groundwater and air contamination that will demand never-ending monitoring.

All of the decisions about the clean-up of the smelter site are taking place behind closed doors with no public input or notice.

Last Friday the company submitted its plan for the permanent hazardous waste landfill and got it approved the very same day without any public notice or comment.

Wednesday's meeting is about a demolition plan that has already been written by the company without listening to any public concerns. They're only letting residents know about it after the fact. 

We know it's the holiday season – that's why Exide scheduled this meeting. The company hopes you've quit paying attention. We hope you haven't.

There's a lot of dangerous material on the Exide site. If it's not disposed of correctly, Frisco could have an economic and public health black hole in the middle of town forever, what USA Today called lead "ghost factories." That's why this is important.

Meanwhile, the city of Frisco is protecting your interests by…being a silent partner to Exide's plans. City Hall has defaulted to the state and the company's judgment and isn't acting as an independent watchdog.  

The City is writing press releases with Exide, but it isn't asking hard questions about the clean-up, or hiring its own experts to double-check what Exide and the state are proposing. It isn't demanding public notice or comment on behalf of residents. In fact, the city is keeping information about the clean-up and smelter to itself, refusing to post it online or release it to residents or reporters.

Come to the Wednesday night Exide meeting to express your displeasure with a strategy that's putting the same people responsible for creating the Exide mess in charge of "cleaning it up."

At this point we need the same public pressure that caused the city to change course and close the outlaw smelter to help open the closed doors that are hiding the clean-up process from public view.