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Honeywell International, Inc. has agreed to pay $6 million to settle a long list of alleged environmental sins, the state says, including pollution at Sky Harbor.

Arizona Republic reporter Ginger D. Richardson reports:

"Most of the alleged violations occurred at Honeywell's 34th Street facility, north of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, between 1974 and 2004, officials said."

"They include discharging solvents, such as the carcinogen trichloroethylene, or TCE, into the Phoenix water system without a permit; failing to clean up jet fuel that leaked from underground storage tanks at the airport, and failing to fully disclose information regarding ongoing contamination problems," Richardson wrote.

"The alleged environmental violations at Honeywell contributed to the vast amounts of groundwater pollution at what is commonly known as the Motorola 52nd Street Superfund Site. That sites stretches from 52nd Street to the east, 7th Avenue to the west, Palm Lane to the north and Buckeye Road to the south," she reports. 

"But the environmental violations also resulted in a second plume of contamination - this one comprised of jet fuel -extending south from the Honeywell facility, under the runways at Sky Harbor. Cleanup at both sites is ongoing," Richardson wrote.

Read the full story here.  

Flypaper Studio Inc., the Phoenix-based presentation software firm started by the founders of Interactive Alchemy, has landed $3.5 million in venture capital.

The company, which sells software that helps users create multimedia presentations that can be uploaded to the Web (think PowerPoint on steroids), announced the deal this week. This is the second round of funding for the company, which debuted in January after several months of testing and product development.

California-based investment firm Sierra Ventures led both rounds. For the first round of $3 million, which closed in February, Sierra Ventures partnered with workers-comp insurance provider SCF Arizona.

SCF was a sponsor of the Invest Southwest Capital Conference last December and provided funding to Flypaper because the company won the best presenter award. 

Flypaper is one of the biggest success stories to come out Invest Southwest, an annual conference that tries to team up promising new firms with prospective investors. This year's conference is scheduled for Dec. 10-11 at the Four Seasons Resort Scottsdale at Troon North.

Flypaper used its first round of financing to roll out two versions of its software. The regular version of Flypaper is free. Flypaper Pro costs $195 for an annual subscription. In addition to Invest Southwest, the firm also attracted attention at the DEMO 2008 Conference, an annual event that highlights new products.

The company plans to use the most recent funding to ramp up marketing and develop additional products, according to a press release the company issued.

Flypaper is headed by CEO Pat Sullivan, founder Don White and Chief Marketing Officer Greg Head.

Edythe Jensen writes a guest blog on some tasty weeds she found growing in her backyard.

Fresh organic vegetables are expensive. The economy is faltering. I think I'll go eat weeds.

It was probably the best food choice I made all summer.

A clump of purslane sprouted and spread in my garden as the zucchini, cucumbers, arugula and dill struggled under blazing Arizona heat. The low-growing succulent with small round leaves wasn't obnoxious looking like other weeds, so I let it grow.

I knew what it was because a friend told me that this green invader is actually a popular side dish in Mexico, where it's called verdolaga.A little research told me that it's a good source of vitamins A, C and E, contains an omega-3 fatty acid and is more nutritious than last winter's lettuce, whose spot in the garden it now occupies.

Susie Lyons, a consumer adviser for the Arizona Cooperative Extension, said the agency tells consumers about purslane's nutritional benefits and urges them to try it if it hasn't been sprayed with pesticides or herbicides.

"It's not commonly eaten here but it is popular in other parts of the world and it is gaining attention," Lyons said.

For weeks mine grew and spread, unfettered by 110-degree days and stingy watering. I hesitated. It's a weed: spoken in the same sentence with words like "noxious" and "nuisance" - not "delicious."

A few days ago, feeling glum about having to pay more than $1 for a single pear, I took garden shears and a basket to the purslane patch.

As I washed the succulent leaves and stems in the kitchen sink, I tasked a piece. Not bad. The rest went into a steamer for two minutes. Wanting to savor purslane's true taste, I skipped recipe recommendations to add seasonings, butter or yogurt. Or to stir fry it with onions and top with cheese.

Yum. It tastes a little like Swiss chard and is as good or better than many of the "real" vegetables my garden has produced. I vowed to give it better care.

For those who don't have a backyard supply, purslane is sold at many local Hispanic markets as verdolaga, including El Rancho Market in downtown Chandler. The price this week: 50 cents a bunch.

Reporter Edythe Jensen covers the city of Chandler.

(Contains updated information below)

It’s amazing what people will do in defense of a cheeseburger.

It appears that the folks who want to pay back Russell Pearce for Arizona’s employer sanctions law have dipped pretty deeply into their bag of dirty tricks, coming up with a three-decade-old allegation that he beat up his wife.

I say “appears” because at the moment, the people behind the sniper fire – an independent committee by the name of Mesa Deserves Better – can hide. But not for long.

The group will have to disclose a statement of its contributors by Tuesday. Meanwhile, we are left to ponder who would dig back 28 years into Pearce’s life and why.

Nathan Sproul, the group’s rifleman, says it’s legit to question the character of a man whose wife filed a divorce petition alleging that her husband grabbed her by the throat the threw her down.

And so comes the mailer sent out this week to District 18 voters, with a picture of crying woman: “What If Your State Lawmaker Violently Attacked his Wife?,” it screams.

“Rep. Russell Pearce Strangled His Wife. Now He Wants Amnesty from Us?”

It’s a devastating flier.

But if you had a magnifying glass, you would see that the divorce petition pictured on the flier was filed in 1980.

And if you had ESP, you would know that Pearce’s wife withdrew the allegation shortly after filing it and that the couple has since gone on to have a long marriage. And that Lu Anne Pearce has since said that the allegation she made once upon a time was not true.

There is no way to know what really happened back in 1980. Was Lu Anne lying at the time or is she lying now, in order to cover for her husband?

If it’s the former, sadly it sometimes happens when couples break up.

If it’s the latter, then I’m going to assume Pearce has reformed himself, given their 30-plus years of marriage. People sometimes do.

Either way, the most interesting part of the whole attack is the shadowy forces behind the mailer. Who would stoop so low to want to bring Pearce down?

Well, let’s start with Sproul, a Republican operative who chairs Mesa Deserves Better and by coincidence, also is working on Prop. 202, which seeks to weaken the state’s employer sanctions law.  A law spearheaded by none other than Russell Pearce.

And the people behind Prop. 202? Well, the major contributer to the campaign is Wake Up Arizona!, a group of business owners long led by Mac Magruder, who owns a string of McDonald’s franchises. This same group for several years fought off attempts to enact any sort of law holding employers accountable for who they hire. And when they were finally rolled over by the Legislature and Gov. Janet Napolitano, they went to court to try to stop the employer sanctions law from going into effect.

And lost.

Now, it appears, they're coming after the law's author.

Chuck Coughlin, Pearce’s campaign consultant, was fuming this morning when I reached him. “You go after Russell to take out the leader and then go after the law."

Sproul, meanwhile, didn’t immediately return a phone call to elaborate on his hint in this morning’s paper that there is more Pearce dirt to come. Or to come clean with who’s behind the excavation.

 In this morning’s paper, he defended the flier, saying LuAnne’s (28-year-old and since withdrawn) charge “is extremely serious.”

 “When,” he asked, “did the statute of limitations on moral outrage expire?"

 I guess we’ll let voters decide when it expires and what they should be outraged about.

--

UPDATE: Nathan Sproul returned my call. He won't disclose who has contributed to Mesa Deserves Better until Tuesday when the law requires it. But he says he alone initiated the campaign against Pearce and will be coming out with another hit piece tomorrow (Friday).  Sproul says he's taking aim at Pearce not because of his stand on illegal immigration or employer sanctions but because of his stranglehold on the Republican Party.

"This is not about immigration," he said. "This is about something I feel very passionately about because this is whether or not the Republican Party in this state is going to be the party of Russell Pearce and white supremacists and the John Birch Society or whether we are going to be the party of John McCain and Jon Kyl."

Sproul wouldn't elaborate on what's coming out next other than to say that he plans to put out a series of pieces to establish "a well documented history of events in his (Pearce's) life that demonstrate he is not morally fit to serve in the state Legislature, to say nothing of which (to be) leader and spokesman of what I consider to be a small minority but a very loud faction within the Republican Party."

Stay tuned.

The Democratic case against Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas, a Republican, is shaping up. It's a hit-and-miss affair.

Thomas has been a mystery to me.

I first encountered him as a thoughtful and elegant writer about crime for the Weekly Standard. His biography of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was first-rate.

So, I had thought of him as an intellectual.

As a politician, however, Thomas has been a barroom brawler. No elegance. No subtlety. Always going for his opponent's groin.

Whether this has been necessary is an interesting question.

Take Proposition 100, the ballot measure voters approved to deny bond to illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes, for example.

Thomas was right that Maricopa County judges were eviscerating the law. In the course of making his case, he said some things about the judges that lawyers just aren't supposed to say. That sent a shiver through the Valley's legal community, Republican and Democrat alike.

However, without Thomas' public shrillness, state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ruth McGregor might not have stepped in and imposed procedures to ensure that the law was reasonably implemented. McGregor presumably didn't want the court system to become enmeshed in the rough politics of illegal immigration. Without Thomas making such a stink, however, she might have simply let the controversy make its normal languid trek to her level.

On the other commonly cited example of Thomas' intemperance, his attack on the State Bar for disciplinary investigations against him, I give Thomas a complete pass. The evidence is quite convincing that the Bar abused its regulatory powers to harass Thomas.

In fact, the case illustrates why the Legislature should strip the Bar of its regulatory functions and invest them in some body that does not engage in advocacy. It should also eliminate mandatory Bar dues while it is at it, and make the Bar earn its keep like any other advocacy organization.

Democrats are also alleging that Thomas is excessively focused on illegal immigration. However, they are off base on their primary example, Thomas' use of the anti-smuggling statute against not only smugglers but also those being smuggled.

Thomas' interpretation of the statute is sound. If smuggling of illegal immigrants is a crime, how can arranging for smuggling not be as much of an offense as doing the smuggling? Thomas' use of the statute has been upheld by the Arizona Court of Appeals.

Moreover, Thomas' approach is more in keeping with the public's desire for local law enforcement to do what it can to make the Valley generally less hospitable for illegal immigration than is the Democratic approach of only going after illegals who commit serious crimes.

The Democrats are on firmer ground in criticizing Thomas' fiscal management. Payments to private lawyers have soared under Thomas. The large sums that went to his former employer, Dennis Wilenchik, particularly smack of cronyism. Wilenchik was a run-of-the-mill lawyer who seemed badly out of his element in roles Thomas gave him. His overreaching in the New Times case was deeply disturbing.

Then there are the millions in RICO recoveries Thomas has spent on what can generously be called public education and ungenerously be called shameless self-promotion. Thomas is the most egregious offender, but he's not the only one. The Legislature needs to step in and either direct forfeitures to general funds or limit their use to hard investigative costs.

There is a law enforcement problem in Maricopa County, but it is primarily that Sheriff Joe Arpaio is careening out of control. The principal problem with Thomas is that he has acted too much as Arpaio's enabler and insufficiently as the legal check Arpaio badly needs.

The public corruption crusade Thomas and Arpaio put together has been an overreaching bust. Thomas' failure to curb Arpaio's morally and legally offensive sweeps is shameful. But so is the Board of Supervisors' failure to use their power of the purse to do the same.

The Democrats have two strong candidates against Thomas, which given Arizona's late primary is a burden rather than a blessing.

Tim Nelson is the candidate with the money and the pedigree. He was Gov. Napolitano's lawyer in the governor's office, and took on a variety of substantive posts for her when she was attorney general.

Nelson is the sort of candidate that might give Democrats a chance at a long-shot upset in heavily Republican Maricopa County. But his primary opponent, Gerald Richard, is mounting a low-budget but spirited campaign, and has some big name supporters.

Maricopa County voters would benefit from a healthy debate over law enforcement. Unfortunately, the lateness of the primary and the lack of funding for Arpaio's opponent, Dan Saban, mean that the debate will be less robust than it should be.

(column for 8.8.08)

The current state sales tax rate is 5.6 cents per dollar of sales. The transportation initiative would hike the rate to 6.6 cents, an increase of 17.8 percent.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Edward Burke believes that you are too dumb to follow that. He ordered the Legislative Council not to mention the last datum in the publicity pamphlet, lest voters get confused.

This case is probably headed for the state Supreme Court.  That court recently abolished the "rational voter" test, in which justices purported to divine whether voters who supported one part of a ballot measure were likely to support another part, to help determine whether the measure met the state Constitution's one-subject rule.

Having abandoned the "rational voter" test, transportation tax hikers and Burke apparently think the Supreme Court should adopt a "dumb voter" test in its stead.

Some things to keep an on eye on tonight in the preseason opener:

'QB Matt Leinart -- A bad game isn't going to cost Leinart his starting job, but it could loosen his grip on it at bit. Leinart needs to look calm and in control. He won't be in long, maybe two, three series, but I want to see how he handles pressure and what he does if his first couple of options are covered.

'WR Steve Breaston -- He's looked good throughout the off-season, but can he do it in games? He wasn't an elite receiver in college at Michigan and he didn't contribute much from that spot last year as a rookie. How far has he came as a position player?

'NT Alan Branch -- Last year's second round pick is playing behind veteran Bryan Robinson. Branch needs to show something beginning tonight.

'DEs Calais Campbell and Kenny Iwebema -- Two rookies who could figure into the rotation. Are they ready to contribute?

'FS Antrel Rolle -- He moved from cornerback and has looked good. Even if Rolle is average at the position -- and I think he'll be better than that -- it will be a big upgrade over Terence Holt, last year's starter. Rolle might return a punt or two, which should be interesting.

'RB Tim Hightower -- It's hard to tell much about running backs at camp because defenders aren't allowed to bring them to the ground. So you never get to see how good they are at avoiding tackles, or breaking them.

'CB Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie -- Starting corner Rod Hood is in uniform and apparently will play, despite missing some practice time last week with a sore foot. DRC will get some time, however. Maybe he'll get to display his speed.