=======================Electronic Edition========================
RACHEL’S HAZARDOUS WASTE NEWS #51
—November 16, 1987—
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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DUMPBUSTERS IN OHIO DEVELOP NEW CREATIVE WAYS TO FOIL DUMPING PLAN OF
WASTE MANAGEMENT, INC.
Waste Management, Inc., and BFI, the largest and second-largest waste hauling companies in America,
were convicted of price fixing and bid rigging and fined $1 million each by a federal court in Toledo, Ohio in
late October. The action was brought against the two well-organized crime participants by Ohio Attorney
General Tony Celebreeze. Unfortunately, Waste Management alone grosses more than $2 billion each year
and nets more than $400 million, so a $1 million fine is easy to absorb as a “normal cost” of doing business
in a crooked way.
The next day, as coincidence would have it, Greenpeace activists Ben Gordon and friends arrived in
Spencerville, OH, to stage a demonstration against Waste Management’s proposed Timberline solid waste
landfill, which is being vigorously opposed by the local citizens group, Dumpbusters, led by Sally Teets.
Greenpeace invaded the proposed site with a bulldozer and a dump truck and put up a giant banner
flaunting their opposition to Waste Management’s plan. For two hours, Greenpeace dug in the ground with
shovels as eight TV stations rolled tape. The resulting publicity helped Dumpbusters’ next move–a huge
rally the following day featuring an eloquent spokesperson for environmental values, Hugh Kaufman; Mr.
Kaufman is a well-known whistleblower who has said, only half jokingly, that his employer, the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, is a “wholly owned subsidiary” of Waste Management, Inc. Fifteen
hundred people attended the rally to hear Mr. Kaufman speak and to oppose Waste Management’s
proposed dump.
The following day Dumpbusters sponsored a “crap out;” they marked up the site into small squares and
sold tickets to people. Then they brought a cow onto the site and let it graze until it relieved itself onto one
of the marked squares. The person holding the ticket for the lucky square won $500.00. Besides raising
money, the event signified that people in Spencerville are “tired of being crapped on” by Waste
Management, says Ms. Teets.
During this one week, Dumpbusters raised $37,000 to support its fight against Waste Management’s
proposed dump. They have opened up a legal attack on Waste Management, passing a local zoning law to
prohibit the proposed dump. Waste Management, which maintains a stable of Doberman lawyers, has sued
in court, arguing that the decision to pass a zoning law was made in secret, violating Ohio’s sunshine law. It
is ironic that criminals convicted of conspiring to fix prices can use the courts to attack citizens for
conspiring to protect themselves by zoning hazards out of their neighborhood.
These creative and dramatic attacks on Waste Management by Dumpbusters and Greenpeace have delayed
plans for opening the Timberline dump. Waste Management had originally planned to begin accepting solid
waste at the huge site early last May, but it is now mid-November and they are not even close.
Our hat is off to Dumpbusters of Spencerville and once again to Greenpeace, for showing us all the way.
When government cannot or will not protect citizens from the menace of hazardous materials, citizens must
take matters into their own hands, to protect themselves.
To learn more, contact Dumpbusters c/o Sally Teets, 744 Eastgate Drive, Spencerville, OH 45887; phone
(419) 647-6620, or Ben Gordon, Greenpeace, 921 West Van Buren, Suite 115, Chicago, IL 60607; phone (312)
666-3305.
–Peter Montague, Ph.D.
Descriptor terms: wmi; landfilling; dumpbusters; greenpeace;