Rollback Time for Walmart
special from the IE Weekly
by George Donovan
June 3, 2010

It’s rollback time for the world’s biggest retailer – but this time Walmart, a.k.a. the King of All Discount Stores (a.k.a. unions’ best un-friend, overseas distributors’ worst nightmare, workers’ rights haters), is face-to-face with a discount of the worst kind: it’s own wallet. Riverside County District Attorney rod Pacheco is practically beaming of the news release announcing that Walmart Stores Inc. has grudgingly agreed to a $27.6 million settlement for literally trashing Mother Nature. Apparently Sam Walton’s golden boy was caught straying off the eco-path when officials at a local garbage transfer station discovered bags and bags of bug killer that was traced to a Walmart store in Rialto. And faster than you can say “Gulf of Mexico oil spill,” investigators discover that this same type of shtick was going on at other Walmarts across Cali. Then the lawyers got into it and Pacheco and his crew of 18 other unruly, itching-to-get-in-a-legal-fight district attorneys accused each of the 236 Walmart stores (including 22 sites in Riverside County) of violating environmental laws. But things didn’t stop at Walmart. Oh, no sireee – Sam’s club stores got smacked with the same stick, a civil complaint. It seems that Walton’s Legion of Doom was in the nasty habit of letting pesticides, chemicals, paint, aerosols, acid fertilizer and motor oil end up in places where the sun don’t shine. As part of the settlement, Walmart agrees to abide by the letter of the green law and brokers a deal to have U2’s Bono perform in the baby food aisle as part of a fundraising campaign for the Sierra Club. Taking a dump on Planet Earth – always Walmart. Always.

A special thanks to the IE Weekly and George Donovan’s “The Rundown” for this Walmart Special