Toxic PR

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The Denver public relations firm MGA Communications boasts that it has won a Silver Anvil Award from the Public Relations Society of America, for its work organizing a special event at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal for Shell Oil. Chemical weapons had been manufactured at the site for for the U.S. Army before it was leased to Shell, which manufactured pesticides there until 1982. In 1987 the site was designated as one of the most polluted Superfund toxic waste cleanup sites in the country. MGA, which has worked for Shell for over 20 years, states on its website that "the task was to ... dispel false claims, and shift focus back to where it should be -- the cleanup and transition of the Superfund site to a national wildlife refuge worthy of the nation's pride." In 1995, Greg Marsh, an environmental chemist with a local watchdog group described the information given to the public by MGA/Thompson as "watered down statements written by slick-talking liars."