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When most people think about pollution, they think about old forgotten chemical dump sites, car exhaust, giant smokestacks, and factories pouring untreated wastes into streams and lakes. What they don’t realize is that one of our environment’s greatest enemies is the mafia. Hollywood likes to portray the mafia as a glamorous bunch of tough-talking men and women who live a fast and adventurous life. They love their family and friends, and sometimes even do good deeds for society. This is a bunch of bull. They love money, power, and prestige. That’s it. They don’t love their family, friends, or society. If they did, they wouldn’t set out to poison them by intentionally polluting the soil, water, and air they live in with the most deadly toxins ever invented. Just for money. The book Poisoning for Profit – The Mafia and Toxic Waste in America, by Alan Block and Frank Scarpitti, reveals what insidious depths the mob will stoop to for a few bucks. When this book was published (1985), America was generating 150 million metric tons of toxic waste per year. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said that only about 10% was disposed of legally and safely. For filthy lucre, the mob has become expert at exposing their fellow Americans to death by cancer and degenerative diseases by adding carcinogens to home heating oil to increase its volume, dumping toxic wastes into city sewers, mixing PCBs into oil and then spraying the oil on our dirt roads to “keep down the dust,” soaking household garbage with toxic waste and then dumping it into cheaper landfills which are not designed for toxic waste, waiting for rainstorms and then taking semi-trucks loaded with toxic waste for a drive with the discharge valve open (one truck driver found doing this said he can dump 6,800 gallons in only 60 miles, “and the only way I get caught is if the windshield wipers or the tires of the car behind me start melting.”), loading a truck with 55-gallon drums of toxic waste and then knocking holes in them and then going for a ride, dumping liquid toxic waste onto open ground anywhere they feel like – including neighborhoods and parks, leaving 55-gallon drums of toxic waste at places where they won’t be discovered for a while, allowing drums to roll off moving trucks, burning toxic wastes without proper pollution controls, etc., etc. If there is a way to dump toxic waste without paying for it, the mob is doing it. The mob is also in the business of owning garbage dumps and allowing their mob buddies to fill them with toxic wastes. They can make so much money doing this that they can lower their prices for garbage collection companies much lower than their legitimate competitors, thereby putting them out of business. Legitimate dumps have even been closed down by corrupt officials. Wherever the mob is found, you will also find corrupt officials and politicians willing to protect and kowtow to them. Block and Scarpitti’s book exposes the length and breadth of this problem by “outing” some of the people who are supposed to be protecting us from illegal dumping. In some places, the Environmental Protection Agency should be called the Environmental Polluting Agency. Their book also tells the stories of many honest and hard-working officials, police, and journalists who put their lives and property on the line to protect American citizens. You know what happens to people when they go up against the mob. This book sites an example of mafia and government collusion which resulted in a terrifying holocaust in the city of Elizabeth, New Jersey (pop. 110,000). Elizabeth is a city across the bay from Staten Island, New York City. William Carracino formed a company called Chemical Control Corporation (CCC) in 1971. This company was supposed to get rid of toxic wastes by incineration. Over the years, thousands of 55-gallon drums of toxic waste piled up, waiting to be destroyed. Mr. Carracino, because of some financial problems, became associated with mob members. In 1977, John Albert took control of the company at gun-point. He was associated with the Genovese-Tieri crime family. Mr. Albert also controlled many other waste disposal sites. At the time of the take-over, Mr. Carracino warned everyone from his customers, to the Department of Criminal Justice, that Mr. Albert might burn down CCC for the insurance money. Mr. Carracino was called to testify about the illegal goings-on at CCC, but right before his court date he suffered two broken legs in an impossibly “freak” accident, and had to spend 30 days in the hospital. The situation at CCC went from bad to worse. Many thousands more 55-gallon drums were added to the piles. Not only was there a huge danger building up, which the government ignored, but the government was actually doing business with Mr. Albert and CCC. The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) used CCC to dispose of discarded pharmaceuticals and other drugs, along with “precursor” chemicals. Those are chemicals used to make illegal drugs. Federal agents involved in this said they actually witnessed the destruction of the stuff they brought, but in 1979 the State Department of Environmental Protection went in and found bales of marijuana, narcotics, steroids, and “precursor” chemicals. Mr. Albert was later indicted on charges that he and his henchmen operated a drug lab in New Jersey. The looming environmental catastrophe at CCC became so alarming that New Jersey finally “shut it down” and took inventory. State health officials reported that there were enough poisons and pesticides to give everyone on Staten Island and Lower Manhattan a lethal dose of poisons in the event of a fire. The army was called out to remove some of the more hazardous explosives stored there (that were supposed to have been destroyed), that the ATF couldn’t handle. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, and the New Jersey Department of Criminal Justice was put in charge of cleaning up this mess. Fat chance. In spite of a court order prohibiting any more 55-gallon drums from being brought there, many thousands more (up to 30,000) were actually delivered to the site. The total number of dangerous 55-gallon drums totaled between 50,000 and 60,000. An hour before midnight on April 21, 1980 the place caught on fire. Arson was suspected. This four-alarm fire had flames 300’ in the air. The heat was so intense that firefighters had to crawl under their trucks for protection. Water being poured on the fire vaporized in midair. Six hundred feet from the fire was a high-pressure gas pipeline. A little further was a natural gas tank with many millions of cubic feet of fuel, and a few 60,000 gallon propane tanks. Down the street were some gasoline storage tanks, each with over 100,000 gallons in it. The fire raged uncontrollably for hours and kept spreading. New York City sent a fire boat to battle the fire from the water and Mayor Koch went to Staten Island to set up a command post. New York City police were alerted that Staten Island might have to be evacuated in the middle of the night because of the huge clouds of toxic smoke which contained benzene, chloroform, toluene, and other chlorinated hydrocarbons. It also contained carcinogenic pesticides. Firefighters became sick from the hot ash and chemically permeated smoke. They were burned from acid that rained down on them. The millions of gallons of water that was being poured onto the fire washed deadly chemicals into the Elizabeth River. The next day the fire was brought under control. If it had reached the fuel tanks, one journalist said, “We could have lost Elizabeth.” After the fire, the clean-up began and was still going on at the time of the book’s publishing in 1985. At a cost of tens of millions of tax dollars, incredible government mismanagement, and blatant disregard for the environment, even the scandal-plagued clean-up was a huge travesty. And in the end, no one was held accountable for this ecological disaster. Not yet. But God was watching. On judgment day, the ones responsible will have to answer for their unrepented sins. John Albert, if he’s still alive, is now 68 years old, which means he doesn’t have much time before he meets his Maker. We will all get to watch when he puts forth his defense (without the help of high-priced lawyers). If Mr. Albert thinks the flames of the Elizabeth fire were something, wait ‘till he sees what’s coming! Revelations 11:18 says God will destroy those who have brought destruction upon the earth, so remember: Earth - love it, or bite the dust. |