Missouri Senate will hold hearing on delayed E. coli report
Brad Lager
JEFFERSON CITY –A Senate committee is investigating what led a state environmental agency to sit on a report showing unsafe E. coli levels at the Lake of the Ozarks.
Sen. Brad Lager, R-Savannah, announced the probe today. He said a thorough review was needed “to ensure public safety and for a healthy, vibrant tourism industry.”
Water samples showed the bacteria levels in late May but the Missouri Department of Natural Resources delayed releasing the report for about a month. A DNR spokeswoman told the Kansas City Star that the agency didn’t want to panic tourists. Officials also say they wanted to determine whether heavy rainfall had caused the problems.
Lager is chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, Energy and the Environment, which will hold a hearing and grill witnesses. A date has not been set.
Lager said the panel is cooperating with Attorney General Chris Koster, who is reviewing whether the department violated the “sunshine law” by withholding the report.
Update: In an interview, Lager said the committee will either be assigned Senate staff or will hire an investigator “to go figure out the facts” behind the stalled report.
Lager said his goal is to make sure another lapse doesn’t occur.
Witnesses will be asked to testify before the committee. If they refuse, Lager plans to invoke the Senate’s little-used subpoena power to compel testimony.
“I hope we don’t have to use it but they need to understand I’m serious. If we’re stonewalled, we will not hesitate, because this is a big deal. The process has clearly broken down somewhere.”
oh boy, a senate panel. great way to bury it. They know full well why it was done, and honestly it was a good idea. it isn’t like the lake only gets tested once every 10 years. They knew the lake’s cycles and effects after rainfall. The senate has no plans to do anything, just appeasing “outrage”. I actually prefer this is what happens…cause the alternative to senate committees doing nothing about a subject is them actually doing something….like making a knee-jerk bill that quashes constitutional rights, restricts social behavior or generally overreacts.
Probe announced today, July 23rd??
Gee, Mr. Lager…what other important things were you dealing with that prevented you from announcing an inquiry before now???
Pardon me if I’m both underwhelmed and skeptical that your little “probe” can or will accomplish anything of substance.
The liars in this case were leftover hacks from Blunt’s DNR who withheld information from new Director Mark Templeton and Governor Jay Nixon.
Dig in all you want Lager. You’ll probably find thousands of deleted e-mails.
When it’s a choice between commercial profits and human safety, the pro-life corproate Republicans always choose the money.
Garrison
I respect your comments to this website even though I don’t usually agree with them. When this story broke I thought that the person that was identified as withholding the information was someone that worked for Governor Nixon when he was A.G. and then went to work for the DNR.
Protecting the environment should have a balance between business interests and concerns about the environment. You most likely draw a different line than I do. Fine. But I think we are likely on the same side of the open government issue.
I commented numerous times to this site about the Blunt’s administration incompetance and outright inablity to follow the sunshine law. As I have previously stated I am an attorney who has some expertise in handling these cases for local governments. I commented negatively towards Blunt even though I voted for Blunt. But the Blunt administration’s handling of the sunshine law in the Eckersley matter was dead wrong.
Let’s apply the same standard to Nixon as we did to Blunt. There is nothing in the sunshine law that allows an agency to withhold this information. Someone should be held accountable and if it is leftovers from the Blunt administration so be it and those people should be held accountable. If it is a Nixon confidant, as I thought the previous article stated, he should be held accountable.
I intend to keep an open mind.
Mark…Thank you for accepting my often harsh and satircal enthusiasm.
I’m not really as militant as I appear.
There was a published letter in Wednesday PD from a former DNR staff member who made the accusations concerning the E.coli report.
That’s the only information I have minus the joyfully antagonizing embellishment.
Thanks for your comments. I binged this to see if my recolleciton was correct. I found this from an article on the subject.
Quote
In an interview, Templeton said he was not involved in discussions led by his former deputy, Joe Bindbeutel, regarding “strategy to understanding and releasing” the reports.
Bindbeutel, a longtime aide to Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon, was DNR’s deputy director and top attorney. He left the agency last month after Nixon appointed him to the state’s Administrative Hearing Commission.
Bindbeutel, who was Nixon’s top environmental prosecutor in the attorney general’s office for 16 years, was “trying to put together an action plan related to this,” Templeton said.
End quote