Bill Rumpke Jr. was interviewed about Rumpke’s continued asset expansion despite the United States Department of Justice Antitrust Divisions’ significant attention to mergers and acquisitions in the trash hauling and landfill industries over the last three decades. Rumpke boasts of exceeding $1 billion in revenue last year.
Rumpke’s success is the bane of existence for an increasing number of Hamilton County residents, who are surrounded by pollution, stench, and blight as a result of being the multi-state region’s Trash Capital.
Despite laws prohibiting county residents from harboring trash from other jurisdictions, western Hamilton County finds itself with trash to the left, garbage to the right, and caught in the middle of Rumpke’s successes.
Rumpke’s wealth grew, but the neighborhoods and retail district it impacted became blighted.
While Rumpke follows other counties’ operational and site rules across the state and pays income taxes in numerous other jurisdictions such as Clermont County (Union Township via a JEDD), Columbus, and Cleveland, Rumpke waged a costly campaign against the Colerain Township initiative to impose an income tax; funds that would have undoubtedly prevented the township from incurring a $6 million annual deficit and cutting basic services.
Rumpke also filed a lawsuit to stymy the positive impact passing local rules on landfill operations and siting would create for the western sector of the county.
The lawsuit was settled in private negotiations headed by Hamilton County Commissioner Denise Driehaus. Driehaus gutted the rules without a single court ruling in favor of Rumpke’s claims.
Residents have said,
Rumpke is a great corporate citizen, however we want them to be a good neighbor, too.”
Rumpke’s financial success is attributed to their corporate-family ideology, aggressive strategic decision-making, and opportunities created by Rumpke-funded state officials, which have resulted in approximately $1 million in campaign donations to politicians ranging from the township level to the presidency in recent years.
The largest of these went to Hamilton County Commissioner Denise Driehaus, who watered down the rules that protected Rumpke’s surrounding neighborhoods.
Rumpke’s political prowess has also benefited all three Colerain Township trustees (Dan Unger, Matt Wahlert, and Cathy Ulrich), who have each received at least $10,000.
Local state representatives (Abrams), senators (Blessing), as well as Yost and DeWine, have all made significant contributions as Rumpke’s empire expanded unhindered by odor nuisance laws, siting regulations, and a lack of reasonable enforcement in Hamilton County that is common in other Ohio jurisdictions.
Rumpke is funding a $15 million facility in Union Township, which, unlike Colerain, is part of a JEDD (which Rumpke spent an estimated $77K to kill in Colerain) and will generate more tax revenue for Clermont County and Union Township.
Despite paying income taxes, Rumpke invested $100 million in Columbus, Ohio (rather than Colerain, their corporate headquarters and largest landfill) last year to construct the country’s largest and most sophisticated recycling center.
However, when Rumpke purchased the former Monsanto property, which was recently cited in a state case that paid out millions for contamination in other areas of Ohio, nothing was paid to Hamilton County residents affected by the contamination, and the state is not pursuing Rumpke for the damages they are liable for at the site on Bond Road near Harrison, Ohio, along the Whitewater River.
Rumpke denied that the abandoned landfill in Harrison/Whitewater Township would become the next Mt. Rumpke 2.0. Less than three years later, Rumpke admits in a recent article that the Harrison/Whitewater landfill is currently “mothballed”.
[B]ut, there will be a day when the landfill in Colerain Township fills up, and that’s why we have it.”
Meanwhile, Hamilton County residents are caught up in Rumpke’s success, much like a tornado. Rumpke’s investments in other jurisdictions in Ohio come at the expense of Hamilton County residents.
As Rumpke strives to reach their next revenue goal of $2 million, western Hamilton County, particularly Colerain and Harrison/Whitewater, is paying the price with low recycling rates, no income taxes, higher recycling fees, pollution, and the burdens of everyone else in the region’s trash to the left of them; garbage to the right as a growing number of families are caught between politicians and Rumpke’s interests.
