The Vicodin Thieves. Chip Jacobs
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Callahan said Sholtz had details about “fraud, money laundering [and] wire fraud by people claiming to work for the U.S. government…in the ‘extraction of assets’ overseas…”
Sholtz’s last tipoff was a humdinger. Callahan said that she had knowledge of “repeated and flagrant violations” inside the air district’s RECLAIM program that resulted in retribution—and threats of more of it—against potential whistleblowers, and the release of over one million excess pounds of nitrogen oxide when AQMD personnel could have offset it. By 2007, RECLAIM had transacted about forty million pounds of air pollution credits, reports show, so one million pounds in unauthorized discharges would be no small addition. Sholtz, Callahan said, also knew about “manipulation of data [or presenting it in a misleading fashion] to choose projects that would lead to personal gain for (AQMD) Board Members…” This document was the only one in which Sholtz declined comment. It is not evident if any of her tips sparked arrests or investigations because there have been no publicly revealed inquiries into RECLAIM since Sholtz’s arrest. A district spokesperson asked for comment referred back to Wallerstein’s gag order.
If all this seems like a crippling, humiliating and tragic slide for someone who might have ascended to legend of the Green Economy, Sholtz said she has largely put it behind her as she moves towards new horizons that she aimed to keep private. She is not sure if she will re-approach the cap-and-trade world again if she is allowed to broker. “The RECLAIM business was exciting,” Sholtz said, her eyebrows arching. “Being able to do a transaction, solve a problem, make software do new things, help the environment. The money just comes in and it goes.”
LA Weekly News Editor Jill Stewart contributed to this story
Scaffolding Man and Machine
Few incidents can compare to the tragedies that occurred and the ensuing public dramas that played out after the day the Colorado Street Bridge nearly fell apart.
—Pasadena Weekly, September 18th, 2003
Just past quitting time on Friday August 1st, 1913, soot-caked construction workers pouring concrete into the highest arch of the future Colorado Street Bridge heard a bloodcurdling snap. Something that wasn’t supposed to had torn loose. Hovering 150 feet above the Arroyo Seco, a lush view all around, the men felt their boots tremble. Seconds later, the walkway below them dissolved and a colleague hollered, “Jump!”
By the ungodly rumble, it was as if the entire structure was collapsing.
Actually, only a minor section on the San Rafael side had, but it packed a devastating wallop. When the mold for the top of span number nine buckled, it created a thunderous pancaking action that snatched three workers—and almost eight more—in a violent, plunging mass. Hundreds of tons of wet concrete, scaffolding, man, and machine came crashing onto the floor of the valley, kicking up dust and pandemonium where there had been nifty organization before.
The boom ricocheted through the gorge, into the undulating, green hills of Busch Gardens, off the Vista Del Arroyo Hotel and toward the storefronts along Colorado Boulevard. Burly carpenters and concrete men rushed toward the cloudy pile. Above them, scaffolding shaken loose by the jarring, dangled precariously. A lookout was later stationed to monitor what might else plummet.
Within half an hour, hundreds of townsfolk drawn by the concussive sound had hurried into the Arroyo Seco to rubberneck or volunteer assistance. On this dusky Friday, the parlors and clinking shops could wait, and police sweated to work crowd control. Businessmen asked what had gone wrong. Women sobbed. Those closest to the accident perimeter could see one of the gruesome results: John Visco, an Italian-born carpenter with an infant at home, had died instantly. If his broken neck hadn’t killed him, his crushed skull had.
James “C.J.” Johnson, a native Missourian who earned his pay stubs raking concrete through the forms, was still breathing. The devout were convinced his survival transcended dumb luck. They believed it was a God-given miracle. The timbers that had swept off the twenty-eight year old married man from his perch had cushioned his thump and then crisscrossed over him so he was not struck by falling wreckage. It took twenty minutes to dig him out. Transported by ambulance to Marengo Avenue Hospital, he was one torn-up fellow. Doctors said his arm was mangled, he would probably lose an eye and that he had suffered head trauma and internal bleeding.
Up To His Neck
The sole Pasadenan among the casualties was a wire technician identified as Harry Collins of Delacey Street. He had been buried alive underneath an estimated twelve feet of soupy concrete and muck. Groaning in pain, consumed in darkness, he begged for someone, anyone to help him.
Groveling was not required. While one group attended Johnson, another focused on Collins. Led by the shift foreman, people grabbed crowbars, jacks, saws, and axes to extricate him from what one observer called “the death pile.” Space was cramped, and the rescue party winnowed to eight men. After three or four hours, the last part digging by lantern, they had made real progress. A Los Angeles Times reporter on scene said the men “burrowed into the heap like prairie dogs, sawing their way as they went.” When Collins whimpered he could not last, a chum reassured him he could. “Never mind, old man,” he said. “We’ll have you out soon.”
Upon reaching him through a makeshift hole, the rescuers found their victim covered up to his neck in hardening concrete that he moaned was stinging his eyes. He was in unbearable pain. R.H. Newcomb, an area physician who had come to assist, begged to do something to numb the man’s suffering. So, a rope was tied around Newcomb, and he was lowered into the hole by a jury-rigged hoist. The doctor gave Collins a sleep-inducing hypodermic shot right into the forehead because that was only part of him exposed. Eventually he was carried to Pasadena Hospital in critical condition.
All Clear
The rescue in the gorge was as dramatic as the collapse was shocking. A buzz pierced the 30,000-plus-town of eccentrics and scions, housewives and haberdashers. In-the-know company men tried pedaling the bright side to the most shaken. Had the top of the arch fallen an hour earlier instead of at knock-off time, a dozen men might have perished. See, it could have been worse.
As it were, charges of the Mercereau Bridge & Construction Company, the job contractor, recounted white-knuckled escapes that made for vivid reading. The competing newspapers were going at it to play up the drama, but going at it without riling the status quo.
One worker told of the experience that almost splattered him in the dirt. He had been preparing to climb down the superstructure to grab some chow at the mess-tent when the scaffolding snapped and the floor beneath him literally vanished. About to drop, he threw his arms around a steel brace jutting from one of the dried forms and hung mid-air until he could whip his torso over a beam. A co-worker and his relative who swung right next to him used the same escape: they grabbed strips of reinforcing metal rebar in the concrete and held on for dear life. Apparent Hispanics, their last name was the same as the street—Colorado. Once they pulled themselves up, they shimmied down the bridge and helped yank out Collins.
During the next several days, general disbelief and puzzlement about the collapse gelled to fuzzy anger about the cause. Muttering aloud, average folks asked how all hell had broken loose with no warning from safety inspectors and no inkling of prior trouble? The previous fourteen months of construction had seen nothing much go wrong. Sure, the grunts earned crackerjack wages—$2 to $4.50 a day, in part because of the hazards—but they had trusted the engineers to return them to their families intact.
For the brain trust of the Colorado Street Bridge, another question dominated. Would the $234,000 project be delayed past its expected October premiere date? Schedules and reputations were at stake. If completed, this would be the tallest concrete overpass of its kind anyplace in the world and certainly the finest in Southern California. It would be a legend from birth.
A post-accident inspection squelched that uncertainty.
“From my observations this morning, I can say there is no injury to the arch of the bridge, although it had a very severe test,” proclaimed City Councilmember and Public Works Commissioner T.D. Allin. “The opening of the bridge probably will be delayed [just] thirty days. If there is traffic over