Elian case continues
■ Attorneys in Cuban boy’s
case push a theory that
father is unfit to parent
WASHINGTON — With a
deadline looming and legal op
tions narrowing, relatives of
Elian Gonzalez on Sunday
pressed arguments that the boy’s
father is unfit as they battled to
retain custody of the 6-year-old.
The White House responded
that there is no evidence of the
sort, and the father’s lawyer said
the “outrageous” allegations
were a sign the Miami relatives
are getting desperate. “There is
no doubt this father loves his
boy very, very much,” said Gre
gory Craig, who represents Juan
Miguel Gonzalez.
Three of the relatives’ attor
neys, appearing separately on
three Sunday talk shows, sug
gested that the father is not fit to
raise Elian. Attorney Manny
Diaz said the legal team has sub
mitted evidence to federal court
and to the government, although
he declined to detail it Sunday.
“One of the lawyers on our
team met with the attorney gen
eral at the beginning of this
process and raised those types of
concern,” Diaz said on ABC’s
“This Week.”
But Craig said the family is
just now raising the issue. “It’s
outrageous that at this point in
this discussion ... they’re raising
these kinds of questions,” he
said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”
The family’s arguments,
backed up by members of Con
gress who want Elian to remain
in the United States, come as the
Justice Department insists that
the relatives agree to surrender
Elian if they lose their pending
court case.
Justice has given the relatives
until Tuesday to sign such a
promise and has threatened to
revoke the boy’s permission to
be in this country if they do not
agree. That deadline has been
extended twice already.
Family members want to pre
serve their option to keep up the
legal fight even if they lose their
case in federal court, which en
forces immigration law. They
also want a family court to con
sider the child’s best interests.
The Miami relatives have said
they will surrender the boy if Im
migration and Naturalization
Service officers show up at their
door and demand him. Federal
officials hope to avoid that.
Diaz said turning Elian over to
his father would cause “further
irreversible trauma.”
But John Podesta, the White
House chief of staff, stressed that
the Clinton administration be
lieves Elian should be with his
father, who wants him back in
Cuba.
“A child belongs with his nat
ural parent unless that parent’s
unfit,” he said on CBS’s “Face
the Nation.” “We have no indica
tion that Elian’s father is an unfit
parent.”
The Associated Press
Kitzhaber rues EPA listing
■ Governor laments listing
of Portland Harbor among
most polluted waste sites
SALEM — Gov. John Kitzhaber
says the state failed to prevent a
Superfund listing of a 5.5-mile
stretch of the Willamette River
because it couldn’t get polluters
to agree on a payback plan.
Better coordination among his
administration, Oregon’s Depart
ment of Environmental Quality
and the Port of Portland may
have resolved differences,
Kitzhaber told The Oregonian.
The U.S. Environmental Pro
tection Agency is expected to list
the Portland Harbor among the
nation’s most hazardous waste
sites this week. Decades of indus
trial activity and chemical manu
facturing has polluted the stretch
that runs through downtown.
“The single biggest failure was
the fact that we didn’t have
enough responsible parties at the
table,” Kitzhaber said. “We just
couldn’t get it done.”
The EPA’s regional office in
Seattle will seek Kitzhaber’s ap
proval for the listing before send
ing its recommendation to EPA
headquarters in Washington,
D.C., where agency staff will re
view various studies. The pro
posed listing then will be posted
in the Federal Register, opening it
to public comment for 60 days.
Kitzhaber said he doubted any
last-minute maneuvering would
take place to avoid the listing. He
said he expected to sign an EPA
letter of concurrence for the list
ing sometime this week.
The governor encouraged Ore
gonians to view the listing as a
step toward ensuring a healthier
river and ecosystem — despite
the potential stigma of a Super
fund designation.
The Willamette River posed
several competing interests that
proved too complex to overcome,
the governor said. The main chal
lenge, of course, has been the
prospect of a cleanup involving
70 parties or more.
Other problems included: 1999
listings of salmon and steelhead
under the U.S. Endangered
Species Act, a port authority des
perate to preserve a multimillion
dollar project to dredge and
deepen the river’s navigation
channel, a city government strug
gling to control 3 billion gallons
of raw sewage spills annually
and six Northwest tribes bran
dishing treaty rights to fish the
river.
The Associated Press
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