Next up was Randy Truckenbrodt of Randall Industries. Randy told us of a facility he purchased in the 1980s that had two small gasoline tanks buried on the property by previous owners. He wanted to dig up the old ones and replace them with one that would better serve his needs for his fleet of trucks.More......Truckenbrodt contacted the government, secured permits, hired a contractor and dug up the two aging gasoline tanks. Then the nightmare began. The IEPA and other agencies began a long, drawn out game of questioning, demanding, and stalling Truckenbrodt’s work resulting in almost two decades of obstruction. A 50-some-foot hole was left open in the ground in the middle of his property for 17 years as government officials dallied on giving him permission to complete his construction. 17 years!
All during this time, Truckenbrodt’s property was in a purgatory unable to be sold, improved, or used easily by his company. Worse, all financial avenues were closed to him for the property. He could not refinance or get loans as the IEPA had the property on its trouble list.
Truckenbrodt noted that the environmental testing game is a major scam more often than not because the state encourages testing, and testing, and testing ’til the cows come home racking up costs the whole time. It’s so bad, Truckenbrodt said, that many contractors have told him they quietly urge clients to just go ahead and build their buildings, lay their driveways, or do other things without notifying the IEPA at all and cross fingers that the government will never find out about the work being done. The system, Truckenbrodt says, is so bad that it encourages people to break the law and cheat in order to avoid the jobs-killing regulatory nightmare that can sometimes take decades to get through.
But hey, you can move your business to Indonesia.....problem solved.
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