Peter S. Goodman

And that's the problem.

So there is due diligence.

There are inspections.

There are recommendations.

There are recommendations.

There's an action plan.

But there's no compulsion to do the right thing or the business doesn't happen.

And meanwhile, the person who's buying it on the other side of the ocean, in this case, Chris Pruitt and East Penn, doesn't know any of that.

And it's certainly not getting on a plane to go to Nigeria to make sure Trafigura is really engaging in a rigorous audit process.

So this is where the examination did an extraordinary amount of legwork.

So Will had commissioned this team of independent scientists in Nigeria who found 70 volunteers.

And we're talking about 14 children, 16 people who worked at these lead smelters.

And these were people who live...

very close to these smelters.

You know, imagine a village, and in the very center of the village, you know, churches right up against the walls of these factories, schools right up against the walls of these factories.

So life is playing out all around.

And we tested 70 people, volunteers, right in the vicinity, and roughly seven out of 10 of them had levels of lead in their blood deemed dangerous by various medical authorities.

Wow.

So one of the things that we were focused on was this comparison with the worst lead disaster at a battery manufacturer in Southern California more than a decade ago, which was a federal emergency.

I mean, the feds went in, they shut the place down, they tested people, they took over, they're still managing this.