Opinion ID: 572629
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Illegal Dumping Scheme

Text: 4 Waste disposal in New York City is subject to stringent regulations adopted primarily in recognition of health and environmental dangers. Clean waste or clean fill, which generally includes clean earth and/or ashes, dirt, concrete, rock, gravel, stone, slag, and sand, is often used to upgrade building sites, and upon obtaining the proper permits, a contractor may dump specified quantities of clean fill on any identified location. For other types of waste, however, the regulations are more restrictive. Private carters seeking to dispose of waste other than clean waste within the City must use a City-owned landfill. The principal City landfill is the Fresh Kills Sanitary Landfill (Fresh Kills) on Staten Island. Under regulations promulgated by the City and SDEC, carters must pay the City a dumping fee for use of Fresh Kills. From March to October 1988, this fee was $18.50 per cubic yard of putrescible trash and construction or demolition debris; the fee for asbestos, which was classified as hazardous waste and required greater disposal precautions, was significantly higher. 5 Arlington Yard, a 110-acre former railroad yard located several miles from Fresh Kills, contains the largest undeveloped parcel of real property on Staten Island. Though it still contained some remnants of former rail operations and some small piles of refuse, until mid-1988 Arlington Yard was overgrown with vegetation and trees, attracted wildlife, and was considered suitable for residential development. 6 In 1988, some 72 acres of Arlington Yard were owned by CSX, an entity headquartered in Virginia. CSX had previously sold two peripheral segments of the Yard to one Kenneth I. Wilpon; the Wilpon parcels were managed by W & W Properties (W & W), a partnership formed by Wilpon and Fred E. Weiss, a Staten Island real estate developer. (As discussed in greater detail in Part II.A. below, Weiss, originally named as a defendant in this action, was murdered prior to trial.) In 1988, W & W proposed to CSX that clean fill be placed on their adjoining properties to prepare the land for development. CSX considered the proposal but never gave permission to Wilpon, W & W, or defendants to place any waste, clean or otherwise, on its property. 7 In the spring of 1988, Paccione and Vulpis formed defendant A & A Land Development (A & A) and obtained permits from CDOT, CDOS, and SDEC, for the operation by A & A of a clean fill operation on the W & W land. Defendants never had authorization from CSX to use its part of Arlington Yard, and they never sought authorization to dump anything other than clean fill on the W & W portion of the Yard. Nonetheless, from May until mid-September 1988, A & A proceeded to operate a full-scale commercial dump at Arlington Yard, on both W & W and CSX land. Trucks filled with putrescible garbage, construction and demolition debris, medical waste, and asbestos dumped their loads into recently excavated pits. When the pits were filled, more waste material was heaped on, creating a plateau some 20 to 30 feet high. The heap was then covered with a thin layer of the clean dirt that had been excavated to create the pits, so that the dump appeared to consist entirely of clean fill. 8 During the A & A dump's first two months of operations, CSX continued to consider W & W's proposal to put clean fill on CSX property, mistakenly believing that dumping was proceeding only on the W & W land. In June, Paccione mailed CSX a letter falsely reassuring it of the quality of the A & A operation. For example, the letter stated that daily inspections and testing were being conducted; in fact there were no such inspections. Paccione also stated that [a]ll material delivered to the site comes from various excavation and construction sites; instead much of the material brought to the site was garbage, medical waste, and asbestos. 9 CSX executives visited Arlington Yard in late July and only then became aware that a dumping operation was underway on CSX's land. They immediately instructed Paccione, Vulpis, and Weiss in person to cease all dumping on CSX property; CSX gave the same instructions to Wilpon and Weiss by telephone and in writing. In a visit in early August, CSX executives again toured the property; they saw garbage in a pit and smelled foul odors. They repeatedly wrote to Paccione, Vulpis, Wilpon, and Weiss, stating that the dumping on CSX's property was unauthorized. In mid-August, having failed to get defendants to stop using its property, CSX obtained a temporary restraining order barring A & A from CSX's land. Defendants ignored the restraining order and continued to pile garbage onto its land. 10 On August 25, 1988, after CDOS investigators had found garbage in one of the pits at the A & A dump, Paccione made numerous misrepresentations to CDOS officials. He falsely stated that all of the dump's employees had strict orders to turn away trucks carrying anything other than clean fill. In fact, his own company's trucks and trucks of the Vulpis companies were daily being allowed to dump their putrescible loads, mixed with hospital waste and asbestos. Paccione stated that a corrupt employee had been responsible for permitting the dumping of the unacceptable material seen by the CDOS inspectors and represented that the employee had been fired as a result of the incident. In fact, the employee he named was never fired but continued to work at the dump until the State eventually closed it down. Paccione also assured the inspectors that the materials A & A accepted were clean and did not contain any demolition materials, building fill, or rags, representing that 50-100 test samples a week were being taken from incoming loads and analyzed by a laboratory. In fact, no such testing procedure had ever been implemented. 11 On September 14, 1988, SDEC shut down the A & A landfill operation. The ensuing investigation by City, State, and federal officials revealed asbestos, rotting materials, construction debris, household garbage, and medical waste across the entire Arlington Yard. In all, prior to the shut-down, at least 550,000 cubic yards of refuse had been unlawfully dumped by defendants at the Yard. Much of the garbage deposited at the illegal operation was dumped by the Paccione and Vulpis companies. By dumping at Arlington Yard, these companies avoided paying the approximately $800 per truckload dumping fees that would have been required at Fresh Kills, totaling some $4,625,000. In addition, A & A charged other companies $10 per cubic yard to dump their refuse at the site, considerably less than the $18.50 generally charged by the City at Fresh Kills. In its four months of operation, A & A's dump had revenues of approximately $2.6 million. From these revenues, Paccione received $315,610 in direct weekly payments; Vulpis received $286,728 in direct weekly payments; and McDonald cashed checks totalling $196,565. 12 As a result of the A & A operation, the City lost the business of the Paccione and Vulpis companies, as well as business from other companies that defendants allowed to dump at the illegal Arlington Yard site. Accordingly, the City experienced a sharp decline in the tonnage of construction waste deposited at Fresh Kills during this period and a concomitant decline in revenue. In addition, CSX's property, which prior to defendants' unlawful dumping had had an estimated value of $20 million based on its potential for residential development, became unusable for that purpose without a clean-up operation costing approximately $15 million. As of the time of trial, the entire extent of the environmental harm done to that property had not yet been ascertained.