Dirty politics

Houstonians deserve a qualified appointee at the EPA to clean up the San Jac waste pits.

What does it take to get banned from the banking industry for life? Texas has had its share of shady bankers so the mind reels. Yet Scott Pruitt, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, appointed such a man to oversee a taskforce regarding the nation’s Superfund program — including the San Jacinto waste sites east of Houston.

Our lives and health are being put in the hands of Albert Kelly, a man whose qualifications for the job seem limited to his relationship with Pruitt.

Kelly has no serious experience in environmental policy or management. However, he does have experience shortchanging taxpayers. Under Kelly’s leadership, his Tulsa-based SpiritBank suffered significant losses and was bailed out by the federal government. While most banks were able to pay back funds that they received, taxpayers lost 70 percent of the money they laid out for Kelly’s bank, as reported in The Intercept.

The FDIC later assessed Kelly’s “unfitness to serve as a director, officer, person participating in the conduct of the affairs or as an institution-affiliated party of the Bank, any other insured depository institution.”

If he’s unfit to work at a bank, then Kelly should also be considered unfit to help clean up the banks of the San Jacinto River.

Any student of history can tell you that crony appointments often end badly.

Think of Michael “Heck Of A Job, Brownie” Brown being appointed to oversee FEMA after holding a position as the Judges and Stewards Commissioner for the International Arabian Horse Association.

Think of Jimmy Carter’s friend, Bert Lance, a banker who the former president appointed as director of the Office of Management. Lance was later forced to resign in the face of allegations of misuse of bank funds and obtaining bank loans at favorable rates.

Pruitt should have hired a professional with environmental experience, or at least a manager with a successful track record to perform this important job.

The EPA designated San Jac a Superfund site in 2008 and a temporary concrete cap was installed to contain the waste. Since then area residents have lived with uncertainty about what a hurricane would do to the sites and whether the cap would hold. This year, the EPA finally proposed a permanent solution, and announced its plan to remove almost 212,000 cubic yards of dioxin contaminated material for disposal.

The San Jac site is complex and requires experienced leadership. The waste pits were totally submerged during Harvey. Their location in a river vulnerable to hurricane storm surge floodwaters and high winds, combined with the high toxicity of dioxins — even in small concentrations — make excavation of the site both necessary for public safety and tricky.

Poor execution could result in contamination flowing into Galveston Bay, home to the Gulf Coast redfish that is the pride of many local restaurants and fishermen. Financing will also be difficult because Pruitt has proposed cutting the Superfund budget.

Residents of Channelview and Highlands have waited so long for this clean-up and have surmounted so many obstacles. They deserve a Superfund task force with a track record of success.

Our lives and health are being put in the hands of Albert Kelly, a man whose qualifications for the job seem limited to his relationship with Pruitt.