Rachel’s News #51, November 16, 1987
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 Was te 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
SUPERFUND CONTRACTS WILL HELP CONSOLIDATE THE WASTE INDUSTRY INTO HANDS OF EIGHT SUPER GIANTS
Recent amendments to the federal Superfund law will have an important side effect: putting enormous sums of money into the pockets of eight major companies who have already captured 50% of the Superfund cleanup business. The effect will be to tighten the grip these eight companies are developing over the entire U.S. waste industry.
Total expenditures for Superfund cleanups in 1986 were $602 million but by 1996, ten years later, annual Superfund expenditures are expected to rise to $23.1 billion. This means the industry is expected to grow 36% each year. To put this into perspective, the entire waste industry, which is considered a rapidly expanding enterprise, grows 20% per year. Most healthy American businesses grow 3% to 10% per year. A 36% annual growth represents phenomenal growth (a doubling in size every two years!) and a phenomenal opportunity for high rollers.
Industry analysts believe these high-growth conditions will favor the eight major companies that already dominate the Superfund cleanup business. These companies are much more likely to grow than smaller companies because their size, their financial strength, and their aggressive style allow them to acquire expensive assets like landfills, which are often owned by organized crime syndicates. The eight large companies will grow by buying their smaller competitors. Probably a few of the big eight will, themselves, be absorbed by the largest and most aggressive. The surviving companies are likely to be arrogant, ruthless, fabulously wealthy and aggressive as pit bulls.
The eight are: American Ecology Corp. of Agura Hills, CA; Browning-Ferris Industries (BFI) of Houston, TX; Chem-Clear of Wayne, PA; Chemical Waste Management of Oak Brook, IL; Environmental Systems Corp. of Redlands, CA; International Technology Corp. of Torrance, CA; Rollins Environmental Services of Wilmington, DE; and U.S. Pollution Control Inc. of Oklahoma City, OK.
For more information, request a copy of THE SUPERFUND HAZARDOUS WASTE MANAGEMENT INDUSTRY from Beverly Christensen, Lyon Research Co., 55 Broadway, New York, NY 10006; phone (212) 482-2284. –Peter Montague
3000 EVACUATED FOR REFINERY LEAK
A leak of 1,260 gallons of hydrofluoric acid at Marathon Petroleum’s oil refinery in Texas City, TX, Oct. 31 sent 260 people to the hospital, seriously injured 52 of them and caused the evacuation of 3,000 others in the community. Hydrofluoric acid, which is corrosive enough to etch glass and causes severe burns to skin, eyes and lungs, is used to make benzene. –Peter Montague
Descriptor terms: hydrofluoric acid; marathon petroleum; texas city, tx; tx; benzene; petroleum industry; leaks; accidents; american ecology corp; bfi; chem-clear; cwmi; environmental systems corp; it corp; rollins environmental services; us pollution control inc; superfund; remedial action; hazardous waste; waste treatment technologies; waste disposal industry; wmi; landfilling; dumpbusters; greenpeace;
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Rachel’s News was published by Environmental Research Foundation (E.R.F.) from 1986 to 2009. All together, 1000 issues appeared. Unless otherwise noted, they were written by Peter Montague.
Over the years the name of the publication changed slightly, starting as “Hazardous Waste News,” then “Rachel’s Hazardous Waste News,” then “Rachel’s Environment & Health News” and finally “Rachel’s Democracy & Health News.” In this archive, we have simply used “Rachel’s News.”
E.R.F. changed its location over the years from Princeton, N.J., to Washington, D.C. to Annapolis, Md. and finally to New Brunswick, N.J.
To contact E.R.F. or Peter Montague, send email to pm8525@gmail.com.
