Carus Chemical’s Nazi History

Posted on by Protect Starved Rock and the Illinois Valley

Carus LLC in LaSalle-Peru, Illinois, makes chemicals that are put in over 50% of the water consumed in the United States (U.S. EPA 2023 document). Its chemicals are shipped throughout the world for water treatment. Carus’ flagship chemicals, potassium permanganate and sodium permanganate are also necessary for manufacturing cocaine.

Potassium permanganate was originally made by Carus Chemical to use as an explosive for war, which they sold to the U.S. Government. Carus’ chemicals are also used in fracking, mining, and refining crude oil.

In addition to potassium permanganate, the company makes phosphates. Carus is protected as a chemical weapons manufacturer under Executive Order 2023-03 signed by Illinois Governor Pritzker in March 2023, shortly after the Carus chemical factory warehouse started on fire and rained chemicals onto the town of LaSalle, Illinois.

The excerpt below is from an article published by Chicago Reader in 2001:

Power House: The scions of the Carus family of La Salle-Peru have a hell of a tradition to contend with: every generation so far has changed the world. 

Author: Jeffrey Felshman

“During the war Marianne had been drafted into Hitler Youth, and she worked at the western front, peeling potatoes for the soldiers digging trenches. Her father, an eye doctor, was also drafted–into the Nazi Party. After the war he spent a year and a half in an English prison camp then returned to his practice and his family.

Blouke and Marianne were married in 1951. Blouke hadn’t planned to go into the family business, but his father asked him to come up with a new manufacturing process for permanganate. So the newlyweds moved back to La Salle, and Blouke and his brother Paul spent ten years working out the kinks in their new process.

At the same time he was modernizing Carus Chemical, Blouke decided to reform American education.” Read the full article: https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/power-house/?fbclid=IwAR0V5S0QDG4R6BzI1Q90LhxVBfGgudco7bTpF4l9fgRdC01_b7WVeZXkASQ

Opinion | Write Team: Are we condemned to repeat the same mistake?

Posted on by Protect Starved Rock and the Illinois Valley

By Paul Wheeler, Shaw Local News

March 27, 2023

“Potassium permanganate. It is an oxidizer used throughout the country in the water purification process. The highlights of its classification include its ability to intensify fires and its known potential for explosion when in contact with combustible substances….

Following the Jan. 11 Carus explosion in La Salle, plans were made to move all stored materials from the La Salle location to an alternative site. Though investigation of the fire and explosion has not been completed, it might be fair to assume potassium permanganate was involved, with Carus being the largest producer of the substance in the country and the fact it was a substance released in the fire’s aftermath.

Oddly, that “alternative storage site” has turned out to be in the very midst of three of Ottawa’s primary elementary schools. Two of those schools, Central and Shepherd, are 300 yards from the main storage building. McKinley Elementary School is located approximately two blocks away….

There are about 1,000 students occupying all three schools on any given day. Young minds utterly unaware of the decisions being made on their behalf, or not being made on their behalf, by the adults in charge. Yet, given all the warehousing alternatives present in spacious La Salle County, why would one prefer a site so closely situated to so many vulnerable children? It boggles the mind.

Read the full article: 👇

https://www.shawlocal.com/mywebtimes/opinion/columns/2023/03/27/write-team-are-we-condemned-to-repeat-the-same-mistake/