Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post
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From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com
Organization: American Cybercasting
Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com
Subject: Flight finds Gore's garbage
Date: Sat, 31 Oct 92 14:00:15 EST
Message-ID: <news5.1992Oct31.140015@AmeriCast.com>

\SE A
\HD Flight finds Gore's garbage
\BY Michael Hedges
\CR THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Sen.  Al Gore yesterday called a report in The Washington Times about a
large open dump on his father's property "misleading" and "just untrue."

But after Mr.  Gore refused to give local reporters access to the
property, a Nashville television station Thursday night flew a helicopter
over the land and broadcast footage of the dump - filled with aerosol cans,
pesticide containers, dozens of unrecycled aluminum cans, old tires and
filters full of waste oil.

"There is a dump on property owned by Gore's father," said a reporter
for WTVF, a CBS affiliate, while a camera showed the refuse.  "We were not
allowed to see it from the ground, but the dump was clearly visible from
the air."

Last Saturday a reporter for The Times and Gore staffer Alberta Winkler
walked through the 35-yard-wide, several-feet-deep pile of recent and
decaying garbage near the house of Albert Gore Sr.

That property adjoins the home of the would-be Democratic vice
president near Carthage, Tenn.

While some of the debris in photographs mailed to the newspaper by a
neighbor who was upset about the dump had disappeared, the reporter saw two
pesticide containers for a chemical called MH-30, used on tobacco crops.

Knox Wright, supervisor of the environmental control section of the
Tennessee Department of Agriculture, when asked to assess a case where
containers of pesticide were dumped in a pile of garbage on private
property near a river, said: "That would be considered a very flagrant
case."

The Times reporter also saw several filters full of oil, apparently
from farm machinery; large discarded tires; small piles of aluminum beer
cans; a few aerosol spray cans; and a large number of scattered bags of
trash.

Asked who used the dump, Ms.  Winkler said, "This is the Gore Sr.
family garbage."

But on C-SPAN yesterday morning Mr.  Gore denied the dump's existence.

Asked about it by a caller from Houston, he said, "The Washington
Times, the Reverend Moon's newspaper, published a couple of days ago,
claiming that on my father's farm there is a trash dump that they don't
like.  Well, it was extremely misleading, like a lot of things in that
particular publication, and it's just untrue."

The Washington Times is owned by a group of Korean businessmen who are
members of the Unification Church.  The newspaper has no connection with
the church.

Asked to comment about the dump before the story ran, Marla Romash, a
spokeswoman for the senator, did not deny the dump's existence but said,
"It may be ugly, but there is nothing illegal about it."

Mr.  Gore has made concern for the environment his major campaign
theme.

In his book on the environment, "Earth in the Balance," Mr.  Gore wrote
that he developed his concern for ecology on his family's farm and noted
his deep concern about the world's "cavalier attitude" toward waste
disposal.


This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to
other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American 
Cybercasting Corporation.  For more information, send-email to 
usa@AmeriCast.COM