The Cyanide Canary Audiobook By Robert Dugoni, Joseph Hilldorfer cover art

The Cyanide Canary

A True Story of Injustice

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The Cyanide Canary

By: Robert Dugoni, Joseph Hilldorfer
Narrated by: Tom Perkins
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Early in the morning on August 27, 1996, 20-year-old Scott Dominguez showed up for an ordinary day at the fertilizing plant where he worked. By 11:00 am, he was clinging to life, unconscious and suffocating from toxic exposure to cyanide in a tank that was supposed to contain only mud and water.

EPA Special Agent Joseph Hilldorfer was tasked with finding out what really happened on that horrific day in Soda Springs, Idaho, but the answers would not be easily uncovered. For more than four years, Hilldorfer, his partner Bob Wojnicz, and a force of top-ranking US attorneys struggled to expose the disturbing truths behind the tragedy, but would their efforts be enough to put the man responsible, Allan Elias, behind bars?

©2004 Joseph Hilldorfer and La Mesa Literary LLC (P)2017 Tantor Biographies & Memoirs Law Professionals & Academics

Critic reviews

"[An] electrically charged narrative...Top-notch nonfiction legal thriller, reminding readers of the baseline: 'This all comes down to one thing. It's all about money.'" ( Kirkus)
Important Social Justice • Fascinating Environmental Crime • Great Narration • Well-researched Content

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This was OK. It passed the time while I did chores. It was a drama about toxic chemical waste & the court proceedings to prosecute the offender. Since I live in an area with a lot of chemical plants it was interesting as I've seen this happen often in the area during the 80s and 90s. If you like court room dramas this will fit the bill.

Courtroom drama about toxic chemical waste

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Not my typical read. Very glad I picked this book. It is not a page-turner BUT it is educational AND it makes you appreciate the people whose jobs are to look out for the victim and the public, in the broadest sense.

Good on you, Hilldorfer, great job!

Thank goodness these guys exist and do their jobs so well!

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This is a great, well- researched book! Love the dedication to handling this true story. Fantastic authors.
Narrator is good too- but the mispronunciation of the local city and regional landmarks is driving me nuts. I’ll return and switch to kindle.

Fascinating story!

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What someone will do in order to enrich themselves. Lives of employees are endangered. Something that could have been avoided by taking proper precautions. With this sample given it makes you wonder what it would be today with the reduction of environmental controls.

The struggles to get someone committed for an environmental crime

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Honesty and complex problems loaded upon investigators. Great story. interesting look into investigations and frustration with delays.

EPA

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This book is fascinating and was hard to not listen for hours and hours. Love the narrator. It really shows the behind lthe scenes look at what goes on in a courtroom. Will read more by this author.

cyanide canary

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I thought the problems of convicting businesses owners who own chemicals industries throughout rural America were investigated often by the environmental protection agency. The authors captured a picture one man-made environmental crimes and the full picture of a disaster area in Idaho. The court scenes are very interesting and frightening to me because I am an environmental concerned citizen.

Environmental Protection Agencies At Work

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Very interesting! Not a subject I’d otherwise review. Tells story of one case which helped to establish the importance of EPA and like agencies. Unfortunately real life victims of true crimes. Includes follow up of those involved. Arranged as an audible story only it’s not fiction. True facts.

Audible documentary-EPA creation gaining ground

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This is a gripping story of how arrogant environmental criminals are - especially in rural America.

Thank you Mr Hilfendorfer for working to investigate the crimes and punish the offenders.

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If you expect action and suspense, The Cyanide Canary will disappoint you. Also, audio is not the ideal format for this book; I borrowed the Kindle ebook when I purchased the audio book and was able to follow the audio version as the ebook was read.

The crime which destroyed the life of a 20 year old man occurred while the owner of the company was operating what amounted to a hazardous waste disposal facility by burying waste on his work sites thus potentially polluting groundwater and local streams. I spent my career working in the manufacturing sector and am aware of the laws and regulations concerning hazardous waste and its transportation and disposal.. In my opinion the death penalty would not have been excessive punishment for this criminal.

This is a case, one of few, where an environmental criminal paid for his crime with significant jail time. It is a very unusual case because the criminal was convicted and sent to prison. Few others have.

The book does not deal with the pervasive issue of remediation of hazard waste sites through the superfund process. There are thousands of polluted sites in the US too few of which have been cleaned up due to the a combination of poorly written laws and the bureaucratic nature of EPA. Efforts on remediation of some of the sites has been ongoing with little progress for 35 years. The criminal owner in this book left the two sites he owned continuing to pollute groundwater and streams.

EPA has become a severely bloated bureaucracy that prefers to deal with the relatively trivial issues while failing to deal effectively with the more serious real problems. It has become so politicized that it deals almost exclusively in political matters.

The laws creating the EPA were passed during the Nixon administration. One of its first decisions under William Ruckleshaus was strictly political: outlawing the use of the insecticide DDT despite scientific evidence strongly to the contrary. Other nations followed the US eventually leading to millions of human deaths in third world countries. Nevertheless, the overall impact of EPA was strongly positive to air and water quality in the US until 2009 when the EPA became thoroughly a part of the political system and it primary task became influencing elections rather than environmental protection.

The Cyanide Canary is a worthwhile listen.

True environmental crime case

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