Waste Management Stiffs City
"Waste Management, Inc. (WMI) handles billions of dollars worth of garbage each
year. Subsidiaries, like Waste Management of Ohio, haul, process and bury millions of
dollars worth of solid waste in Montgomery County alone.
In 1991 - for the privilege of burying a whole lot more garbage - the company
agreed to pay the city of Dayton between one and two million dollars in scheduled
payments lasting into the next century. Now WMI is reneging on its agreement and
stiffing the city.
When Waste Management originally approached the city with the proposal to build
a landfill at Stony Hollow on the west side of town, the residents of the neighborhood
objected and so did the Dayton Plan Board. That board, expressing concern for the
city's water supply and for the neighborhood surrounding the Stony Hollow site, turned
down WMI's rezoning request in November 1990.
After a tortuous series of additional hearings, court suits and negotiations, the
Dayton City Commission approved the landfill in Apri1 1991. In exchange for
approval, WMI agreed to pay the city between 1 0 and 26 million dollars over the next
10 to 20 years. Half of that amount was to go into the newly created West Dayton
Development Fund.
WMX divides the community
The entire process sparked considerable controversy. The Dayton Daily News and the
Chamber of Commerce strongly supported the landfill. So did many small businesses
around the city, and even the League of Women Voters testified in support of the
project at public hearings.
But more than 80 small businesses close to the site opposed the landfill. Nearby
residents formed the Southwest Montgomery Environmental League (SMEL) and used
a variety of tactics to try and stop the landfill. SMEL and Leaders for Equality and
Action in Dayton (LEAD) even forced the City Commission to propose a citizen
referendum process for approval of future landfills. Voters passed the proposal by an
overwhelming margin in 1994.
An ordinary sort of giant corporation, if there are any, might have gotten the message
and decided to seek fortune elsewhere. Waste Management, though, is not ordinary. The
record shows that the company will use its enormous resources to take opponents to court,
stonewall regulators and adopt extreme interpretations of contractual agreements, if so will
benefit the company.
Environmental Violations, public corruption
To an outsider, WMI looks like a corporation whose labors are neatly divided into
two divisions. One division handles solid waste; sorting it, processing it, burying it, burning
it, transporting it hither and yon. This division, not infrequently, also breaks laws and
violates environmental regulations.
The other division goes to court or threatens to do so. It litigates, it sues, it denies
violations and negotiates fines. It enters into legal agreements with municipalities and
private entities and goes to court to change those agreements. Much of what this
division does has been characterized as bribing and bullying. For the city, reaching an
agreement with such a corporation might be akin to selling one's soul to an alien and
overwhelming power.
Greenpeace, the independent environmental watchdog, has monitored Waste
Management for many years. In 1990, the organization published a book about the
nation's wealthiest waste hauler. WMI's operation, says the Greenpeace report, has
provided numerous instructive lessons about "the nature of the waste disposal industry
as a whole - the use and promotion of dangerous technologies and the abuse of
economic and political power."
The District Aftorney for San Diego County (Calif.) was also strongly critical ofWMI. 'The history of (WMI) presents a combination of environmental and anti-trust
violations and public corruption cases which must be viewed with considerable
concern," said a report issued by the office of District Attorney Edwin Miller in March
1992.
Bribed and bullied
Indeed, Daytan's own very confusing experience with Waste Management might
well leave an observer wondering whether the city has been bribed or bullied.
When WMI's original landfill proposal was not approved by the Plan Board or the City
Commission, the company sued. The lawsuit against Dayton was apparently settled
when the two parties reached an agreement about the rezoning at Stony Hollow in April
of 1992,
In exchange for City Commission approvals of their rezoning and development
applications, Waste Management agreed to pay the city up to $26 million in "host
fees" in a series of installments. Commissioners approved the rezoning over the
objections of the SMEL and without resubmitting the agreement to the City Plan
Board which had originally denied the rezoning request.
At the time, members of SMEL said that the payments by WMI were bribes. The
mayor and the commissioners are selling us out," said Ken Keith, a member of SMEL.
And Jim Sweeney, a spokesperson for the organization, claimed that Waste
Management's money was shutting off opposition to the landfill.
SMEL and LEAD made numerous arguments against the landfill. One of the most
important arguments was that the site was far too close to Dayton's water supply, a
huge aquifer that serves most of the county's population. But Waste Management and
its business supporters (including the Dayton Daily News) claimed that it was the
responsibility of the Ohio EPA, not the City Commission, to protect the water supply.
City Commission agreed and voted 4 to 1 to approve the plan. (Of those who voted to
approve, only Tony Capizzi and Dick Zimmer remain on the current commission.)
But the Greenpeace report suggests that concern about damage from WMI's,
landfill operation is wise. According to the report, hazardous waste sites and the
locations operated by Waste Management are the cause of numerous instances of
documented groundwater contamination.
Throughout the controversy, SMEL and LEAD also argued that Waste
Management was deliberately siting the landfill in a minority neighborhood because it
is historically easier to do so. Studies by the U.S. General Accounting Office, the
United Church of Christ, Greenpeace and others show the low-income people and
communities of color get dumped on more than anyone else, and that race is an even
greater factor than class in determining where dumps are located.
WMI submits different plan to EPA and stops paying the city (off)
Despite the settlement with the city which bound the company to build only the
approved development plan, WMI submitted a different plan for Ohio EPA review
and approval. Though city officials were aware that the plan submitted to EPA was a
different one, they took no action.
When Waste Management decided it did not wish to make September 1994 and
January 1995 payments to the city - $I.7 million under the settlement agreement and
instead asked the Federal Court for permission to escrow the payments, the city
delayed any action to recover the money until spring of this year.
In the face of all this, city officials have been remarkably restrained, making little or
no public comment. Commissioner Dean Lovelace, an opponent of the landfill, says
that the city administration has repeatedly advised silence.
"I have been told that my statements are potentially a basis for WMI saying that the city
is hostile to the agreement and taking us to court," said Lovelace. The administration
wants to proceed through the courts he added, but city court action against Waste
Management has been infrequent and delayed.
'I want to tell them to stop working on the landfill until we get the money and settle
concerns about what they are building,' Lovelace said. But the record suggests that city
officials will take no steps to halt WMI's work on the project.
In fact, bowing to Lovelace's frustration, the city Law Department paid an
undisclosed sum of money to at least two private law firms to make separate
recommendations to the city about how to proceed. But the recommendations, boiled
down, were to do nothing.
Only SMEL soldiers on. The organization and some area residents still have court
suits asking that the commission's rezoning approval be overturned, because the public
hearing and other elements of the procedure were improper.
SMEL also has a motion before the Environmental Board of Review asking the
board to overturn EPA's approval of WMI's Permit to Install (PTI) a landfill at Stony
Hollow. The PTI, says SMEL, is illegal. Federal District Court Judge Walter Rice has
already ruled that the settlement between WMI and the City Commission to build a
specific landfill configuration is included in a federal consent decree. Quoting Judge
Rice, SMEL's appeal to the Board of Review says that neither "WMI or the Ohio EPA
has the right to alter" the plan approved by the City Commission.
Whatever the outcome, Waste Management seems to be routinely violating the
settlement agreement and the city appears to be too intimidated or too hungry for "host
fees" to do anything about it. Defining the public interest here does not seem so
difficult, but only SMEL and LEAD are acting like they have a broader interest at heart.
-Jeff Epton"
THE DAYTON VOICE
JULY 12,- 18,1995
Diddling with WMI
"Thank you for the excellent article (7/ 12/95) by Jeff Epton on Waste Management of
Ohio (WMO). What Epton writes about is accurate: LEAD [Leaders for Equality and
Action in Dayton] has worked cooperatively with SMEL[Southwest Montgomery
County Environmental League] during the last three years but did not actively work on
the charter vote in 1994.
LEAD did hold a large meeting of 350 with the county prosecutor urging him to
indict Waste Management for failing to reveal in its application that its site sat on sand
which was part of the aquifer. The county prosecutor refused to do anything.
About a year later another meeting of about 350 was held with the local EPA
Director..... This meeting brought little fruit as the EPA issued a PTI (Permit to Install),
allowing WMO to build a landfill 50 percent larger than that approved by the city! The
EPA kept its reputation of being a business assistance agency in reality.
What your article left out is the slow action by two judges. Common Pleas Judge
Foley has diddled around for months (arguably years) failing to make a decision on a
SMEL case. If he does not act in August, he will probably be breaking the Supreme
Court of Ohio rules requiring swift justice. The SMEL law suit trying to get the Dayton
City Commission to restart the process again dragged on for several years also because
of Waste Management's legal maneuvers. ... (Waste Management evidently succeeded
in panicking the Chamber of Commerce, the Dayton Daily News and General Motors
that a new landfill was urgently needed or waste disposal prices would triple. Actually,
landfill prices dropped 50 cents per ton from Rumpke in Cincinnati.)
Federal Judge Rice has failed to rule on the city protest of WMO placing payments
in escrow, an action evidently Rice allowed even though it is not part of the settlement
agreement between the city and WMO. To his credit, Rice did not allow WMO to
increase its landfill size to 14 million cubic yards.
As chair of the LEAD Landfill Committee, I can inform you that LEAD continues
to be very active in opposing the landfill. We have met with all city commissioners
pressing them to take vigorous action. Our legal counsel agrees that the city would
probably fail to stop the WMO digging, but it can act strongly to urge the governor to
intervene. In some way I am sure that LEAD will actively press the landfill issue before
city commission candidates in the fall.
In the meantime, LEAD is pressing the governor, the attorney general and the Ohio
EPA to take action to stop the landfill. Waste Management is a notorious corporate
criminal in the area of environmental violation, price fixing and political corruption.
The state "bad boy law' (ORC) makes it illegal for the state to deal with WMO unless
they show rehabilitation. There are no signs of rehabilitation by WMO, but WMO
political contributions can and undoubtedly have smoothed the whole situation.... If the
community is able to gain the governor's attention of the rampant environmental racism
of WMO's siting of the landfill in the populated African American neighborhood, the
governor can stop the PTI by failing to renew it and can intervene with the Attorney
General in court.
LEAD is also preparing to begin a corporate campaign against WMO and its
closely related companies. WMO owns a controlling interest in Servicemaster which
has contracts for services with the Dayton Board of Education and United Theological
Seminary. Servicemaster also owns Chem Lawn, Terminix and Merry Maids, WMO
(corporately called WMX Technologies and originally called Ace Scavenger Company),
also has a major interest in Discovery Zone, the indoor children's playgrounds found
throughout the country including the Dayton Mall.
The landfill battle is far from over. It is my hope that, with the additional growing
pressure on Waste Management nationally by church bodies regarding their
environmental racism, WMO will find it in their self interest to actually implement their
recently adopted Good Neighbor policy and withdraw from Stony Hollow!'
Rev. Richard L. Righter
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