Cox Goes Flaccid on Polluter

Last year the Depart­ment of Environ­ment­al Quali­ty sought felony war­rants from At­torney Gen­eral Mike Cox’ of­fice against Grace­land Fruit for dump­ing thousands of gal­lons of blue­berry waste into a gravel pit in 2002. The result­ing pol­lution killed a previous­ly vibrant trout stream in Honor, Mich­i­gan.

After receiving com­plaints from the pro­perty owner where the stream is located, the De­part­ment of En­viron­ment­al Quality open­ed an official in­vesti­ga­tion in March of 2003, submit­ting felony and misdemeanor warrant requests to the AG’s office against Graceland and its waste hauler some nine months later.

But after spending some 20 months “evaluating†the warrant request, or aging it to perfection or what­­ever, Cox declined to press charges refusing to ex­plain the legal reasons, leav­ing his spokes­woman to say that "it was a bad case; it just didn't meet criminal muster to pro­secute." Hell, that took 20 months?

The chief DEQ investigator on the case was also told, basically, to go to hell, getting a terse one-paragraph email from the AG’s office saying that Cox declined the warrant request.

Cox’ office said the decision not to prosecute had nothing, nothing, to do with the fact that the founder of Grace­land, Donald Nugent, was a big time fund­raiser for the GOP. It was all just a big coincidence.

But not to worry, said the spokeswoman, Cox opted to seek a civil settlement to force a cleanup and win "substantial penalties."  "The office is not letting anyone get off, quote-unquote, scott-free," she said.

But we’re still waiting for any news from Cox on the “substantial penalties.†We’re not holding our breaths, but to help us keep track of the time while waiting for these “substantial penalties†we're publishing the Cox-Graceland No Substantial Penalties Clock. The clock started ticking when Cox declined the warrant request August 30, 2005.

Penlaties Paid by Graceland to Date: $0.00