Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

A question: How many trash haulers exist in Connecticut? Ten? One hundred? A thousand? �Nobody knows for sure. Although the majority of the state�s 169 municipalities do not provide garbage pickup for residents, forcing most people to hire private contractors, the industry is largely unregulated. �The Legislature has refused for years to change the status quo, with unhappy results. For starters, a lack of state scrutiny allows trash haulers to keep the cost of garbage disposal high. More ominously, the absence of state oversight has made parts of the industry vulnerable to organized crime. �There seems to be no doubt about the ties between the mob and the trash business in the minds of some legislators, one of whom apparently tried to turn the relationship to his own advantage. According to court testimony, Senator Louis DeLuca, Republican of Woodbury, tried to arrange for James Galante, a trash hauler from Danbury, to �pay a visit� to a man who Mr. DeLuca believed was abusing his granddaughter. Mr. DeLuca later told the F.B.I. he did so because he believed Mr. Galante was �on the fringes� of organized crime. Mr. Galante has since been indicted on scores of racketeering charges. The investigation of Mr. Galante and others has also yielded alarming evidence that organized crime divvied up trash-hauling routes in Connecticut, inflating prices and keeping out competition. In any case, the State Legislature now knows enough to adopt reforms proposed by state officials like Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who, along with Gov. M. Jodi Rell, has suggested tighter regulation. An advisory committee appointed by Governor Rell last year suggested that background checks be conducted on trash haulers, that they be licensed, and that a statewide trash authority be established. But her reform plan died in the Legislature. �Mr. Blumenthal has made many similar suggestions for years and now proposes that the state be placed in charge of both regulating trash haulers and setting the fees at the state�s trash-to-energy plants. These fees are negotiated town by town, region by region. Both suggestions are good ones, especially since the plants may fall into private hands in the next several years as current operating agreements expire. Towns should not be held hostage to high fees with no state oversight. �The Legislature has ignored or voted against such proposals in the past, and it is easy to see why. The trash-hauling industry has made generous campaign donations to many legislators and has thus managed to avoid change. But enough is enough. The corruption in the industry has become an embarrassment and taints the reputations of the majority of honest haulers. A licensing process would remove the cloud now hanging over the industry.

Should the legislature need any further evidence of how useful reform could be, and what it could do to help ordinary citizens, it should review the history of New York City�s successful response to a similar predicament. For years, the commercial trash hauling business in New York was controlled by a cartel of companies affiliated with organized crime. In 1996, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani created the Trade Waste Commission to regulate the industry and to help dismantle the cartel.

With a big assist from Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney, the cartel was effectively broken and real competition entered the market for the first time in many years. A study by Mr. Morgenthau found that the haulers had been extracting what he called a �mob tax� of $500 million a year by dividing up the city into fiefdoms and heading off competition. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/30/opinion/nyregionopinions/CT-trash.html?_r=1&oref=slogin