Judy Gass was thrilled when she discovered
asbestos dumped next door to her house. It was in the form of old
floor tiles — not very dangerous, because they were mostly
intact — jumbled in with a mountain of rubbish piled on the
parking lot of the former Virden Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
The nursing home’s new owner, supposedly renovating the
facility, had filled two Dumpsters with tiles, insulation, water
heaters, and other debris. When he failed to keep up his rent
payments on the roll off trucks, the Dumpster lessor had reclaimed
the bins — emptying them on the parking lot first. For months, the big pile of waste just sat
there. Gass badgered Virden city officials, trying to get someone
to force the owner to clean it up. Frustrated, she finally
contacted the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, only to be
told trash wasn’t their problem. But she knew asbestos was a different matter.
A known carcinogen, asbestos is harmless in the form of building
materials like drywall and flooring. It turns hazardous if such
materials are broken or crushed, releasing tiny fibers into the
air. For that reason, the floor tiles mixed with the rubble
represented a potential public health problem — and, Gass
assumed, an incentive for IEPA to get the mess cleaned up. She paid
Precision Analysis Inc. to test a few of the tiles, and was
actually relieved when the results showed up to 10 percent
asbestos. “I thought this is an answered
prayer,” she says. “This will get this unsightly mess
gone.”
That was December 2003. In the two years
since then, the original rubbish pile eventually disappeared
— mysteriously taken away overnight, Gass says — but
the situation at the former nursing home has only gotten worse. The property owner, Ray Landers, removed all the
drywall from the building by ripping a hole in the side of the facility
and hauling board out on a skid loader — releasing more asbestos
by pulverizing the wall board. He promised in court to hire a licensed
abatement contractor to handle the asbestos, but now claims he has no
money to pay for the clean-up. Three environmental firms he hired to
deal with the problem haven’t been paid for their work. Landers could not be reached for comment. His
home phone is answered by a voice mail device that says the mailbox
is full and can’t accommodate more messages. His attorney, Ed Rees, did not respond to a message left at his
office. However, Landers hasn’t always kept
such a low profile. In the 1990s, he was part-owner of an 87-acre
property investors hoped to develop into a $6 million sports
complex called Xanadu — a failed venture that later resulted
in legal action against one of Landers’ partners. In 2002, he
appeared in a State Journal-Register article announcing the development of a
Chatham subdivision called Landershire Estates, a 40-acre tract
divided into 100 lots for new houses priced at $150,000 and up.
Last year, he visited Springfield’s Masonic
Center as Grand Royal Patron of the Order of the Amaranth. A short biography posted on the Internet says
Landers has traveled to five continents “teaching on finances
through the Word of God.” He bought his first home at the age
of 13, and his first farm at age 19, having already learned
“the art of buying and selling, optioning and trading,”
according to the biography. By 25, he was a millionaire, but lost
$2 million in 1982. A “miraculous restoration” between
the years of 1988 and 1993 “more than replaced all that was
previously lost,” and “until this day, God has released
Ray to teach the Godly principles which he has learned through the
trials of his own life and the lives of others he has known,”
the bio states. The profile appeared on a Web site promoting
Landers’ March lecture at a church in Australia called River
of Praise. In Auburn, where Landers lives on a 40-acre
farm, his attempted renovations of a local business has been the
subject of several critical editorial columns in the Auburn Citizen, and he
sometimes responds with letters to the editor. In a Jan. 6 letter,
Landers argued that renovation isn’t always an attractive
process. “Progress and development must have
controls, but not be lorded over by a tight-pulling stranglehold
that hinders progress,” he wrote. “Just driving around
and seeing a nicely cleaned-up city is not the answer. Progress is
messy. Just keep the end in mind.”
In the same letter, Landers stated that
tidying a renovated site requires patience. “I’ve never
seen anyone who would not clean up and haul away debris if someone
just asked them to and gave them time,” he wrote. Yet, Landers has been cited multiple times
for his refusal to clean up. The Illinois Pollution Control Board
has fined Landers in three separate cases — twice for open
dumping on his own land, most recently in May. IEPA inspectors
found construction and demolition debris, garbage and general
refuse, lumber, metal, electrical boxes, and a demolished grain
elevator. At the Virden nursing home, Landers has
repeatedly refused to clean up. Last December, Attorney General
Lisa Madigan filed suit against the corporation listed as the legal
owner of the facility — Equipping the Saints Ministry,
International, Inc. Landers’ wife, Billie, is registered
agent for the corporation. In April, IEPA placed a seal order on the
facility, and in May, Landers signed an agreed preliminary
injunctive order promising proper clean up of the site. He hired
environmental engineers who designed an abatement plan, but Landers
claimed in court he can’t afford to pay for the work to be
done. At a Nov. 21 contempt hearing, the judge ruled that Landers
had not willfully failed to comply. Thomas Davis, chief of the attorney
general’s environmental bureau, says the fact that the former
nursing home is technically owned by Equipping the Saints limits
what can be demanded of Landers. “Whether he has money is not really the
issue. It’s the corporation,” Davis says. Landers’ well-documented track record
of flouting environmental laws, even on his own farm, is likewise
irrelevant, Davis says. “We’re just trying to enforce
the injunctive relief the court has already issued. Once we have a
finding of liability, we can raise evidence as to their past
violations,” he says. Gass, who has had her hopes raised and
trashed more times than she can count, has new allies in her fight.
While the former nursing facility sits boarded up and surrounded by
a bright orange fence, Landers’ hazardous waste has trickled
down to an adjacent lot where the city of Virden had stacked water
pipes for a public works project. Testing has shown those pipes are
contaminated with asbestos, and the city wants Landers to pay for
replacements. Bill Dodd, the Virden alderman whose ward
includes the nursing facility, lives 300 yards from the site.
“We here in Virden are very upset, to put it mildly, not only
with Landers but with IEPA and the attorney general’s
office,” he says. “I always thought they had a little
more power and a little more clout than they’ve shown. . . .
It’s been too long sitting there and nothing done.”
This article appears in Dec 1-7, 2005.
