You always have to wonder whether taking money from a local politician has any impact on how you perform your job on the air. This story falls into that category. According to the Times-Picayune of New Orleans WWL's Garland Robinette received a $250,000 loan from the owner of a landfill, after Robinette regularly criticized the reopening of a city landfill to dispose of Hurricane Katrina debris. Robinette is the midday host of "The Think Tank" on WWL Radio in New Orleans. The feds flagged the money and interviewed Robinette several times in 2010 according to the paper. Federal authorities are investigating landfill owner, Fred Heebe, who is a personal friend of Robinette.
The Robinette story is the latest development in a two-year investigation of landfill owner River Birch. The paper says the company "allegedly paid $460,000 in bribes to a former state official to lobby for closing the Old Gentilly landfill. Heebe sought to close the Old Gentilly Landfill and the new Chef Menteur Landfill to increase River Birch's share of more than $175 million in disposal fees for at least 38 million cubic yards of hurricane debris. The paper says "in mid-2006, Robinette began raising environmental concerns about the two landfills in eastern New Orleans, focusing primarily on Old Gentilly, a former city dump that was reopened two months after Katrina to help dispose of storm debris. In a July 2006 show, Robinette implied that River Birch has a superior location because it is "very isolated" from homes and businesses in the Waggaman-Avondale area. But former state Department of Environmental Quality Assistant Secretary Chuck Brown, whom Robinette was interviewing, countered that 10,000 people live within a two-mile radius of River Birch, more than for the two eastern New Orleans landfills."
From mid-2006 through mid-2007, Robinette frequently raised environmental concerns about disposing of debris at Old Gentilly and the new Chef Menteur Landfill in eastern New Orleans on his "Think Tank" talk show. Asked whether the loan created a conflict of interest, Robinette's attorney told the paper Robinette "is certain that he never spoke about River Birch at any time after receiving the loan from Mr. Heebe." The paper says Robinette informed Entercom about the loan last year.
Read the entire story HERE
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