Here’s a story about how democracy works that’s a far cry from what they teach in high school civics class.

Two years ago, three big waste management corporations decided to build mega-garbage dumps here in North Carolina. Not for garbage from North Carolina. But for garbage from Massachusetts and New York.

They promoted their idea by saying garbage from New York and Massachusetts was a golden economic opportunity. Mega-dumps, they said, were just the boost our economy needed. (Environmental groups would later say that what the waste management companies really liked about North Carolina was our environmental regulations, which are more lax than New York’s.)

At any rate, the waste companies got off to a strong start and persuaded local politicians in three poor rural counties to give their blessings to huge dumps. Then they applied to the state for permits. And hit a snag. By then word had gotten around about just how big these dumps really were. And legislators got the willies. Not the environmental willies. The political willies. Because they’d started hearing from constituents who didn’t really believe New York trash was going to be a golden economic opportunity.

In short order the legislature passed a moratorium and told the Department of Environmental and Natural Resources not to grant any permits for a year.

That started a grand brouhaha.

The folks at DENHR (who regulate dumps) are polite, well-intentioned, and, more often than not, dyed in the wool environmentalists. They promptly went to work on a new set of regulations for mega-dumps and came up with a bill that was an environmentalist’s dream and a waste management CEO’s worst nightmare. Among other things the environmentalists at DENHR proposed – horror of horrors – to hold investors in the dumps liable for leaks, spills, or other environmental disasters.

The waste companies’ response was swift and lethal. They hired a legion of lobbyists to kill the bill.

The first shots were fired in the State Senate and the lobbyists were taking no prisoners. They stripped the provisions out of the bill that prohibited building mega-dumps in flood plains. (You have to wonder why anyone would want to build a trash dump in a flood plain but one company did.) Then they threw out restrictions that limited building dumps in wetlands. Then they went to work on getting investors off the hook. They carved the bill to pieces then just when they must have thought there was a light at the end of the tunnel the Democratic leaders in the State Senate threw them a curveball. The Senate leaders said there was one thing they just couldn’t compromise on. They couldn’t let a waste company build a mega-dump beside a wildlife refuge. And no matter what the lobbyists did the Senate leaders wouldn’t budge.

Now if it sounds strange that a politician would say it’s okay to build a waste dump in a flood plain but not next to a duck impoundment, well, there turned out to be a reason.

Senate Leader Marc Basnight’s cohorts brought the bill to the floor for a vote – and they must not have been able to believe their eyes.

The Senate Republicans proceeded to make Democrats – who’d agreed to let waste companies build dumps in flood plains – look like environmental heroes. The Republicans weren’t quite this blunt but, in effect, they threw open their arms and welcomed New York trash to North Carolina and said dumps ought to be built in flood plains and next to wildlife refuges and just about anywhere else.

The Democrats didn’t waste time looking a gift horse in the mouth. In about five minutes they rolled over Republicans and passed their bill.

Then the dump lobbyists left the Senate and paraded over to the House to, essentially, get House Democrats to do what Senate Republicans had failed to do. Get rid of those pesky wildlife refuges.

Democratic Rep. Pryor Gibson (who got into a spot of trouble last year for accepting contributions from waste management executives while pushing a bill to help build dumps) lead the charge. The House Democrats gutted the Senate bill so completely one stunned State Senator said, “Is there anything left besides the title?” About the only thing in that bill environmentalists liked was the House agreed to extend the moratorium one more year.

But that didn’t last long. Next the House proposed to do away with the moratorium too. (Later, they put it back in a third bill.)

By then North Carolina’s environmental groups were scratching their heads, wondering what had happened to the leading environmentalist in the State House, Joe Hackney. Speaker Hackney didn’t seem concerned at all that the House had gutted the Senate bill.

As it turned out he had a plan of his own.

Then when the “Conferees” from the two chambers sat down to reconcile the House and Senate bills and hammer out a compromise a strange thing happened.

The House “Conferees” – appointed by Speaker Hackney – decided they preferred the Senate bill to the House bill. In the blink of an eye they sent the Senate version back to the House for a final vote, where – for technical reasons – it could not be amended. That left House Democrats a harsh choice: They could vote for the Senate bill or they could vote against it (and give the waste management companies free reign to build dumps just about anywhere they wanted). There wasn’t much doubt how Democrats would vote on that. The House passed the Senate bill.

Which brings us back to those pesky wildlife refuges. It turns out two of the three dumps were next to refuges and the bill killed them outright. How it killed the third dump is a little more intriguing. There wasn’t a wildlife refuge anywhere near the Reigel Ridge dump in Columbus County when the first bill was introduced in the Senate. But there was when the final bill passed the House in August. Because the state created one the day before the final vote.

So it doesn’t look like those folks in Massachusetts and New York will be shipping their garbage to North Carolina anytime soon. But don’t weep for the poor waste management companies. In the end they made out all right too. On the last day of the session the legislature passed a bill to reimburse them for all the money they’d spent on putting the dumps here – except for the costs of land (which can be sold) and what the companies paid their lobbyists.

And that’s how Democracy works.

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