Toxic Wastes and Organized Crime

For much of 1980, residents of Pittston, a town in Pennsylvania, U.S.A., watched trucks pull up behind a filling station along Highway 81, pause there briefly and then move on.

About the same time, there began appearing in the waters of the nearby Susquehanna River a powerful mixture of “carcinogenics, mutagenics and teratogens” (that is, chemicals causing cancer, mutations and gross developmental deformities). Once discovered, according to a report in the California newspaper Star-News, the deadly contamination was halted with difficulty just 25 miles (40 km) from the fishing grounds in Chesapeake Bay.

Where did the poisons come from? They were traced to a stream near an abandoned mine. In the mine was a pipe that came out of the ground behind the garage where all those trucks had been stopping. Seemingly, the trucking firm had been collecting dangerous chemicals from reputable firms, charging up to $1,000 a load to cover such things as fees for approved toxic-waste dumps, then illegally dumping the lethal chemicals into the pipe, where they drained into the mine, then into the stream, then into the Susquehanna River and almost into the Chesapeake Bay fishing area.

Who would do such a thing? Reports linked the operation to an organized crime group. According to reports submitted to Senate subcommittees, this is but one of “dozens of examples in which criminals have stepped in to earn large fees by illegally disposing of modern industrial wastes,” said the Star-News.