Document Kk0MvmRDk9bJ9ZwGBOyab9Q

Donald W, Stager President & Chief Executive Officer Republic Services, Inc. 18500 Mocth Allied Way Phoenix, A Z 85054 Fax; (302) 655 5 0 Open Letter To Mr D onald W. Stager Republic Services ' President & C hief Executive Officer Dear M r D on ald W. Slager: May 16th, 2018 Respectfully, I would like to draw your attention towards one of the Landfills that your company Republic Services acquired back in 2008. It is the Blue Ridge Landfill, located at 2200 FM 521 Rd, Fresno, TX 77545. As one of the thousand neighbors to the Blue Ridge Landfill, whose rights were violated by your acquired Landfill, I'd like to urge you to put an end to our daily suffer, today before tomorrow! Respectfully, we are thousands of people living in proximity to this landfill. I understand that developers and builders slowly expanded the construction of our residential properties over the years, and they still are! Although the Blue Ridge Landfill has been violating people's rights under Texas Administrative Code, Title 30, Rule 101.4 since 2004 (if not before), nonetheless, it seems that since your company acquired this Landfill, the numbers of complaints that the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has received, has skyrocketed to over 4000 complaints Page 1 of 7 Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00071088-00001 since at least 2015!!! Respectfully, do you consider this number alarming enough to please intervene today, before tomorrow and make sure this does not happen anymore? As a friendly reminder, here is the Texas Administrative Code that the Blue Ridge Landfill has been violating our rights for years, under the Texas Administrative Code Title 30, Rule 101.4: "No person shall discharge from any source whatsoever one or more air contaminants or combinations thereof in such concentration and o f such duration as are or may tend to be injurious to or to adversely affect human health or welfare, animal life, vegetation, or property, or as to interfere with the normal use and enjoyment o f animal life, vegetation, or property." Reference: http://texreg.sos.state.tx.us/public/readtacSext.TacPage?sl=R&app=9&p dir=&p rloc=&p tlo c=&p ploc=&pg=l&p tac=&ti=30&pt=l&ch=101&rl=4 Sir, I have been a homeowner in Pearland, TX within the same Fort Bend County boundaries from your Landfill, ever since July 2016. Although our seller did not disclose the existence of the Blue Ridge Landfill and its proximity (within a mile from our house), reality is that we have been suffering ever since we moved in on an almost daily basis! Since I moved in, I have noticed that the chemical and garbage smell comes in a subtle way twice during the day: one in the morning (between 1 0 -llam ) and once in the afternoon (around 4pm). Then it starts in a subtle way around 6-7pm and increasing around 8-8:30pm. The odor nuisance does not stop. It is continuous, but it usually reaches its worse intensity between 10:30pm and lam and remains this intense ALL NIGHT LONG till at least 8:30am!! This has been causing thousand of people to wake up at night due to the strong stench, affecting our health. To name few of the major symptoms that the Blue Ridge Landfill odor nuisance has affected us: > nausea, vomiting, headaches, burning eyes, itchy throat, itchy & runny nose Mr Slager, the Shadow Creek Ranch homeowners, human beings and I would genuinely appreciate if you could take this situation seriously and make sure that your landfill is no longer violating our rights to sleep every night comfortably in our homes, and to breath fresh clean air, inside our homes and in our community! Yes, the odor nuisance infiltrates thousands of people's homes! Respectfully, can you imagine waking up every night due to a strong foul smell of strong foul smell of garbage/waste/sewage? Can you imagine waking up every night to burning chemicals odor, burning tires/rubber, honeysuckle odor? We have experienced on numerous amount of times strong smell of manure waste!! This has been causing us horrific nausea and vomiting!! Mr Slager, I would personally like to know, how would you feel as a human being, instead of starting your daily life with a a fresh and clean shower, you got showered by manure Page 2 of 7 Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00071088-00002 waste stench??? Is that something you would accept for yourself? For your family? For you parents, and perhaps for your wife and kids? Mr Slager, as disgusting as what I am about to tell you may sound, we have honestly started to "enjoy" the smell of our very own defecation!!! Quite a change from the horrific and harmful smell that the Blue Ridge Landfill has been causing us by the emission of chemical, garbage, sewer and manure smell on a daily basis, for years on end!!! Mr Slager, I am a Nurse by education who has underwent a BSN and a Master Research in Nursing Sciences. I am educated enough to know how harmful this is for our community health. There are many studies that have established this to be cause of cancers among population suffering from such harmful and horrific odor nuisance! Is this what your company prides itself by operating their business in such a negligent and harmful way? Why then publish everywhere how Republic Services prides itself to be "top notch", to be "good neighbor", to care about their neighboring communities? Why do you allow your operating businesses to contradict the image that you have personally pride yourself with, Mr Slager? Mr Slager, Republic Services prides itself on Linkedln, by stating on the following link https://www.linkedin.com/company/republic-services-inc/: "We want our customers to feel at ease because o f the reliability o f our services, uplifted by the environmental impact they can make partnering with Republic, and delighted by the simple solutions and array o f services we provide. We'll handle it from hereTM, Republic's tagline, lets our customers know that they can count on us to provide an effortless experience; backs the promise that we will be on-time, never miss a pickup and leave the area clean; supports our promise to deliver superior products and services to meet their customers' needs; and remind them about our environmental commitment." We then proceed to read under your Company's "Environmental Commitment": " We believe in protecting the planet and applying common sense solutions to customers' waste and recycling challenges. [...] Our Company takes pride in the commitment to environmental stew ard sh ip and sustainable practices; renewable energy; community involvement; the safety o f our employees; and innovation in all aspects o f our business operations. Furthermore, under Paragraph "Our People", your company states: "We employ approximately 33,000 full-tim e employees and work to create an d maintain an environment that attracts, develops and retains people who assure our success with customers, differentiate us from our competitors. W e want to be an em p loy er of choice for top talent." Mr Slager, you have probably received many letters by now and will keep on receiving more. I beg for your conscious & due diligence, as a President & CEO of a company as large Page 3 of 7 Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00071088-00003 as Republic Services is. I beg you to look at our letters from a humanitarian side: Please be compassionate and empathetic with us, even if some have painted much more anger in their letters, than others. Mr Slager, whether you believe in God or not, at the end of times, we are all going to eventually die at some point. None of us will be taking any materialistic possessions with us when we die. None of us will be taking any accumulated "fortune" with us when our time comes. I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt, as a President and Chief Executive Officer of one of the Largest Waste Companies in the United States of America, you may have not been knowledgeable about the seriousness of the situation. I urge you to make sure your Blue Ridge Landfill company complies with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, today before tomorrow, and put an end to thousands of human beings, of children, that wake up at night suffering from nausea, vomiting and headaches due to their rights being violated under TAC 30, Rule 101.4. Mr Slager, I received a phone call last week from Mr Burgess Stengl, Environmental Manager at Blue Ridge Landfill. Mr Stengl called to inform me that the outcome of his investigation regarding my complaint (about odor nuisance waking us up at 4am last week), was because it was Garbage Pick-Up Day! Feel free to go on my website to read the detailed report: https://www.facebook.com/notes/rosa-saade/received-phonecall-from-mr-burgessstengl-environmental-manager-at-blue-ridge-la/138739446983363/ Mr Slager, on April 24th, 2018, I traveled to Austin, TX, along with couple of my neighbors, and we testified under oath at the Hearing held at the Capitol, about the gravity of the situation. With all due respect Mr Slager, Mr Stephen Minnick, Director of Republic Services' Government Affairs had the nerve to testify under oath that majority of the complaints are false, and that we don't even know how to file a complaint, and all we care about is to protest and not allow permit renewal! This is not acceptable! Mr Minnick proceed to state under oath that he personally drove there and did not smell anything! Mr Slager, I personally have a lot on my plate in my life: My husband is legally blind, with a visual field below 10 degrees. Due to his disability, my husband needs me to drive to/from work daily, and to/from any other place he needs to attend. I also have two children that are aged 5 and 4. Respectfully, I had a car accident few months ago, and my husband could not attend work, my kids could not go to school, because I am the sole caregiver of the 3 of my little family! That is without mentioning the big responsibilities that a mother has towards her family! Like all my fellow neighbors, we did not travel all the way to Austin, to hear one of your employee falsely accuse us of liars under oath. Another one of your employees, Mr Ross Knocke, had the same nerve last year. Kindly take a look at the screenshot below: Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Page 4 of 7 Tier 7 ED 002061 00071088-00004 City of Pearland seeking $1 million in damages In addition to TCEG fines and complaints from nearby residents, Blue Ridge Landfill officials, faced more conflict in July 2017 when Pearland city officials filed a lawsuit seeking SI million plus court costs and request a permanent injunction against the landfill that demanded company officials "immediately correct the defects in design and operation of the site that have allowed the nuisance odor to persist unabated." Company officials deny the lawsuit allegations. 'We do not believe the City of Pearland's claims of ongoing violations have any merit," Republic spokesman Russ Knock told a Houston Chronicle reporter at the time. "Any prior issues were resolved in an approved settlement with TCEQ at a hearing last week. The city's allegations do not acknowledge other odor sources, including the potential that the city's own wastewater treatment plant has contributed to the issue." Respectfully, call your employees back to order, as it unacceptable to be treated of liars! Each one of my thousand fellow neighbors has a story similar to mine, if not more! Mr Slager, I would like to hold you accountable and liable to the message you signed page 3 of the Republic Services' Code of Business Ethics and Conduct. A copy of your message is attached to the Letter: http://media.corporate- ir.net/media files/I.ROL/82/82381/RSG Business Ethics and Conduct Web Version Final.p df Mr Slager, would you be interested in buying out majority, if not all, of the properties located in Shadow Creek Ranch? Perhaps if you bought our properties, and moved in them, along with Mr Stephen Minnick, Mr Ross Knocke, Mr Burgess Stengl and ALL of Republic Services' employees, you would actually get a taste of your own "chemical, waste, garbage, sewer and manure" smell. I assure you will not accept to get nauseated and/or vomited too long before you contact Mr Burgess Stengl, Environmental Manager at Blue Ridge Landfill to handle the situation at once! Mr Slager, my 5.5 years old daughter recognizes the "landfill smell" by now! How sad and pathetic is it? And I am not talking about walking outside... No Sir, I am talking about when I put her to bed, or when she wakes up in the middle of the night because of the strong stench infiltrated our home! And we don't have windows open Sir! Respectfully, take a look at the conversation I had with her, 3 nights ago, as I was tucking her to sleep: - Mama? Those guys from the Landfill: Don't they feel bad that they do this stinky bad smell to us and to the rest o f the neighborhors ? Don't they feel bad that we have to cover our mouth and nose, so we don't smell it? - 1guess not h -- -j Right? - Mama, I don't think they care, I think they just want to be winners and make bad smell to be worser (Yes she said worser) and they just want to make the world stinkier... Page 5 of 7 Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00071088-00005 Mr Slager, I appreciate you taking the time to read my letter! Your cooperation in the gravity and seriousness of this situation happening in Texas, be greatly praised and appreciated by the thousands of people who have been suffering for years! Please feel free to reach out to me anytime to discuss, if you have any questions or statements you would like to make. Sincerely Yours, Rosa Saade CC: > Manuel Kadre, Chairman o f the Board o f Directors at Republic Services > Kim S. Pegula, Republic Services Independent Director > Sandra M. Volpe, Republic Services Independent Director > Jennifer M. Kirk, Republic Services Independent Director > Thomas W. Handley, Republic Services Independent Director > Ramon A. Rodriguez, Republic Services Independent Director > Tomago Collins, Republic Services Independent Director > Michael J. Larson, Republic Services Independent Director > John M. Trani, Republic Services Independent Director > William J. Flynn, Republic Services Independent Director > Ron Reynolds, US Representative - District 27, and Member o f the House Committee on Environmental Regulation > Ed Thompson, Vice-Chair o f the House Committee on Environmental Regulation, and Chairman o f the Environmental Regulation Interim Subcommittee on Landfill and Air Issues > Pete Olson, Texas United States Representative > Greg Abbott, Texas United States Governor > Erin Brockovich, American Legal Clerk and Environmental Activist > Scott Pruitt, EPA Administrator > Andrew Wheeler, EPA Deputy Administrator > Donna Vizian, Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator at EPA Office o f Administration and Resource Management > Bill Wehrum, Assistant Administrator at EPA Office o f Air and Radiation > Charlotte Bertrand, Acting Principal Deputy Assistant Administrator at EPA Office o f Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention (OCSPP) Page 6 of 7 Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Tier 7 ED 002061 00071088-00006  > Susan Bodine, Assistant Administrator at EPA Office o f Enforcement & Compliance Assurance > Steven Fine, Acting Chief Information Officer at EPA Office o f Environmental Information > Matthew Z. Leopold, General Counsel at EPA Office o f General Counsel (OGC) > Arthur A. Elkins, Jr., Inspector General at EPA Office o f the Inspector General (OIG) \ > Anne Isdal, Regional Administrator at EPA Region 6 (Serving TX) > Troy Lyons, Associate Administrator at EPA Office o f Congressional and In tergovernmental Relations (OCIR) > Brittany Bolen, Acting Associate Administrator at EPA Office o f Policy > Tate Bennett, Associate Administrator at EPA Office o f Public Engagement and Environmental Education (OPEEE) > Fienry Darwin, C hief o f Operations at EPA Office o f the Administrator > Karen Maher, Acting Director o f the Office o f Administrative and Executive Services > Dr. Ruth A. Etzel, M.D., Ph.D., Director o f EPA Office o f Children's Health Protection > Tanya Lawrence, Acting Deputy Director o f EPA Office o f Civil Rights > Tom Brennan, Acting Director o f EPA Office o f the Science Advisory Board Staff > Mike Pence, Vice President o f the United States o f America > Donald Trump, President o f the United States o f America Sierra Club v. EPA 18cv3472 NDCA Page 7 of 7 Tier 7 ED 002061 00071088-00007