How Landfills Work

How Landfills Work - Interviews with city employees suspected of scavenging materials from the Billings Regional Landfill will not begin until the end of the week. Dave Mumford, director of the city’s Public Works Department, said interviews with eight employees will start Friday and will probably wrap up early next week. The workers could be suspended or fired for violating a city policy that expressly prohibits landfill employees from scavenging. They are also suspected of doing the scavenging after the landfill closed, another policy violation.

The interviews will be conducted by Vern Heisler, deputy director of public works, and Scott Emerick, distribution and collection superintendent at the city water plant, a division of public works.

Mumford said he wanted to bring in a division manager outside the Solid Waste Division because landfill employees implicated Vester Wilson, superintendent of solid waste, in the scavenging.

Some of the workers accused Wilson of either taking part in the scavenging himself or of telling the workers they could take what they wanted from the landfill, Mumford said.

However, video cameras at the landfill’s front gate show that on the day in question, Wilson left the landfill at 10 a.m. and did not return that day. And it wasn’t until noon that the first load of materials involved in a railroad derailment were brought to the landfill, Mumford said.

Mumford said city officials have no reason to believe that Wilson had any involvement in the incident, but they want to conduct a complete and fair investigation.

Mumford acknowledged last week that at least six and as many as eight heavy-equipment operators at the landfill loaded their personal vehicles with high-end sporting goods, electronics, guns and other materials on July 23.

Those front-gate videos showed that six employees definitely took materials and some even returned for second loads, Mumford said. It still wasn’t clear whether the other two workers on duty that day were involved, he said last week.

The property was being shipped by United Parcel Service on a Burlington Northern-Santa Fe Railway freight train that derailed near Glasgow on July 17. The railroad used a contractor to haul the UPS goods to the UPS warehouse in Billings.

There they were sorted, and goods that were either damaged or whose ownership was unknown were supposed to be taken to the landfill and buried. Mumford said the property was delivered to the landfill in 11 dump truck loads on July 23.

When landfill workers saw high-quality goods that appeared undamaged – including TVs, cameras and expensive clothing – they began salvaging what they could, Mumford said.