CIVIL
ENFORCEMENT DIVISION
1162 Court Street NE
Justice Building
Salem, Oregon 97310
October 15, 1997
VIA FIRST-CLASS MAIL AND FAX TO: (818) xxx-xxxx
John Dab, Esq.
General Counsel
American Technologies Group, Inc.
1017 South Mountain
Monrovia, CA 91016
RE: American Technologies Group, Inc.
Dear Mr. Dab:
I write to respond to the October 14, 1997 letter, with enclosures, from Mr. Rapp. Since ATG is represented by counsel, I intend to communicate only with ATG's counsel or in the presence of counsel unless otherwise explicitly advised in writing.
Based on my preliminary review of the materials Mr. Rapp sent me, I continue to believe the evidence in hand is definitive; specifically, I believe the testing we had conducted complies with the procedures outlined in the materials Mr. Rapp enclosed with his letter (although I believe the EPA procedure he means to cite is Method 600/4-84-043, not 83). As I wrote in my own October 14th letter, we are open to reviewing the results of any further testing ATG may wish to conduct or have conducted by other parties. While we are of course also willing to have the materials Mr. Rapp sent reviewed directly by our expert, such review cannot take place until this coming Monday. Meanwhile, Mr. Rapp appears to propose a plan "to demonstrate the presence of the IE crystal in an aqueous solution." I must be clear that I am not in a position to comment on specific laboratories, personnel, and test procedures. I would note that in general, the issue of appropriate controls is critical. one may well observe "structures" in tap water. But the identification of those structures is a matter of specialized expertise. We believe the structures Dr. Lo observed and photographed are artifacts commonly found in carbon support films. Finding them again in more samples supplied by ATG would not "demonstrate the presence of the IE crystal" hypothesized by Dr. Lo to explain his observations.
I will look forward to the scientific articles Mr. Rapp has alluded to, and will contact you if we have any further comment on the materials received thus far. I don't think a meeting would be productive until and unless ATG submits in writing a proposed Assurance of Voluntary Compliance such as might provide a basis for discussion.
Sincerely,
Robert Roth
Assistant Attorney General