For two decades, New Jersey has been on the frontier of the garbage crisis. The state legislature started closing landfills a decade ago because landfills pollute groundwater and because there's no practical way to keep hazardous waste out of them. The legislature intended incinerators to spring up in each of the state's 21 counties, and NJ now has 17 mass burners on the drawing boards, but local opposition and bureaucratic delays have prevented startup of even a single incinerator. In the summer of 1987, Governor Kean found a friend in Pennsylvania. As a result, New Jersey is starting the new year shipping half its garbage to landfills in western Pennsylvania, most of them 300 miles from New Jersey.
Chambers currently operates four landfills in western Pennsylvania.
The company also hauls trash in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. Chambers is a family-owned business. The company's Vice President is M.J. Peretto. Shortly after Chambers and New Jersey made their well-publicized contracts, a small Pennsylvania landfill operator less than 60 miles from the New Jersey border applied to the DER for an expansion permit for a small dump in Foster Township. Beltrami Enterprises owns a 3300-acre parcel of land in Foster Township and its owner, Louis Beltrami, naturally sees an opportunity here.