=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #89
—August 8, 1988—
News and resources for environmental justice.
——
Environmental Research Foundation
P.O. Box 5036, Annapolis, MD 21403
Fax (410) 263-8944; Internet: erf@igc.apc.org
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WHAT WE MUST DO–PART 2: ‘GOD BLESS CHEM WASTE.’
The waste hauling industry provides front-line soldiers for
American manufacturers who make consumer products out of toxic
materials. The manufacturing wastes are dangerous but, more
importantly, the consumer products themselves are dangerous when
they are discarded into a landfill or an incinerator. The job of
the frontline troops is to overcome public resistance and get rid
of the toxics any way they can. The manufacturers themselves
provide the bulk of the army, the logistical support troops to
keep the trucks rolling and the pumps pumping. But the waste
haulers do the dirty work, finding ways to get rid of the toxics.
In a future issue of HWN, we’ll discuss the manufacturers and
how they might be persuaded to stop using toxics, but now let’s
continue looking at the frontline forces–the waste industry.
The basic techniques used by the waste industry were developed by
the Mafia. (See HWN #40.) This is not to say that the Mafia
controls the whole waste industry, which it doesn’t. But, by
example, the Mafia has influenced the way many waste haulers do
business. For example, the Mafia developed the “property rights
system” in which garbage haulers divide up customers, refusing to
compete with each other, thus reducing the uncertainties that
competition would create, and making it possible for haulers to
charge higher prices than a competitive system would allow. This
is a form of illegal price fixing, and it has long been a common
practice in the waste business. Waste Management, Inc., and BFI,
the two firms that dominate the waste hauling industry, have both
been convicted more than once on felony counts of price fixing,
and today they stand accused in several courts of conspiracy to
fix prices and reduce competition on a massive scale. (See HWN
#34 and #66.)
In addition to bid rigging and price fixing, the Mafia gets its
way by buying the allegiance of officials it needs to control.
The waste hauling industry does the same.
Margate City (Florida) Commissioner Rick Schwartz testified in
court (in exchange for immunity from prosecution) that he sold
his vote on a 1979 city contract to Waste Management for $3,000.
John Horak, former manager of a Waste Management subsidiary was
fined $25,000 and jailed for six months for bribing municipal
officials in Fox Lake, a Chicago suburb. Under oath, Mr. Horak
said the bribe was approved by James deBoer, president of Waste
Management of Illinois, who is now himself under investigation.
Raymond Akers, a former Waste Management official bribed Chicago
Alderman Clifford Kelley with $10,000 in 1986 to gain a site for
a trash transfer station; Mr. Kelley and Mr. Akers are both in
jail now.
Lewis Goodman, manager of United Sanitation Services, a Miami
(Fla.) subsidiary of Waste Management bribed a city sanitation
inspector to steer business to his company; Mr. Goodman was also
convicted of price-fixing in 1986.
Much more subtle, and more legal, than cash bribes of local
officials are two other common practices in the waste hauling
industry: helping elected officials stay elected by fundraising
on their behalf; and hiring local officials after a few years of
loyal public service.
Florida newspapers report that Waste Management regularly holds
fund-raising parties for local officials seeking reelection; in
fact they say Waste Management lobbyist Bill Moffatt has held so
many fundraisers he can’t remember them all. Waste Management
puts out about $1000 for food and drink and invites its corporate
friends to attend. The corporate friends open their wallets on
behalf of a candidate for local or state office; in the time it
takes the guests to have a drink and write a check, the candidate
collects $7,000 to $12,000 (thus providing 5 to 15% of their
campaign chest) and Waste Management has strengthened its
connections to the local political structure. No laws have been
broken.
Nationally, Waste Management reported donating $248,763 to
Congressional candidates in 1985 and 1986. In addition, the firm
regularly flies national politicians to its headquarters near
Chicago. The politician has lunch with company executives, gives
a talk, takes a few questions-and receives $2000 for the trouble.
“It’s a working session,” says Harold Gershovitz, a Waste
Management vice president. “They don’t just drop by the office
and pick up $2000.”
Another persistent pattern in the waste hauling industry is that
it hires the people who regulate it. If you’re a regulatory
official, poorly paid (at least by standards set in the private
sector), taking flak from the public and from industry–a cushy
job in the private sector looks like a “way out.” As the kids
approach college age and your financial needs escalate, why not
bail out and go to work for the polluters? Walter Barber, who
used to prosecute Waste Management for the EPA now works for
Waste Management. So does former EPA regional administrator Jack
Schramm. So does Joan Bernstein, a former general counsel for
EPA.
At the nation’s largest chemical dump at Emelle, AL, the Alabama
Department of Environmental Management’s chief inspector, Russ
Zora, in 1987 quit and went to work for Chem Waste. So did Craig
Brown, who used to work fulltime for EPA monitoring the Emelle
site.
Robert Kauth was assistant administrator of Broward County,
Florida in 1980 when local officials discovered that, between
1977 and 1980 Waste Management and other garbage haulers had
overcharged local residents more than a million dollars for
garbage service. That year county auditor Norm Thabit suggested
the waste haulers be required to submit audited reports to
justify rate hikes. Mr. Kauth successfully opposed the
requirement. In 1981 Mr. Kauth went to work for Waste
Management, Inc., and the overcharging continued. In late 1987
the Fort Lauderdale SUN SENTINEL revealed that Waste Management
had made more than $600,000 overcharging people between 1982 and
1986.
The promise of a future job can go a long way to convince a local
official to take a “sensible” view of the world. And the promise
need never appear in writing, so there’s no evidence of any deal.
Front line troops are necessary in a system that cranks out
billions of pounds of poisons every year, year after year. “If
we weren’t here, you’d have to invent us,” says James Range, head
of Waste Management’s Washington, DC, office. But the troops are
generally unwelcome and they concentrate their efforts in places
that tend to be Southern and rural and poor. Chem Waste is the
Waste Management subsidiary that operates hazardous waste dumps
like the largest one in America, at Emelle, AL, which provides
about $2 million a year in local taxes. Local people believe
their water supplies are being contaminated by the huge chemical
dump. But they also desperately need the income. The Reverend
Emmitt Summerville led a prayer at the dedication of the new city
hall in Gainesville, Alabama earlier this year by thanking the
entity that made it possible: “God bless Chem Waste,” he exhorted.
Corporate profiles of Waste Management and BFI are available
from: CCHW, P.O. Box 926, Arlington, VA 22216; phone (703)
2767070. Both are very revealing.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: wmi; cwmi; bfi; haulers; organized crime;
revolving door; msw; hazardous waste industry; bribes; price
fixing; citizen groups; environmentalists; chemical
manufacturing; landfilling; incineration; rick schwartz; fl;
margate city; john horak; il; fox lake; james deBoer; raymond
akers; clifford kelly; lewis goodman; united sanitation services;
congress; bill moffatt; harold gershovitz; walter barber; epa;
jack schramm; lawsuits; emelle; al; russell zora; robert kauth;
norm tabitt; msw; water; groundwater; cchw;