Camden County trash authority faces financial, environmental heat

Like many of New Jersey's independent government authorities, the agency also has provided work for those with political connections.

One recent example is Luthman, who was brought on as deputy director in May 2009 at $128,500 a year. The former chairman of the Camden County Democrats founded and chaired a political action committee called the Leaders Fund from 2002 to 2008, when it contributed about $900,000 to Democrats around the state.

Regular contributors to the PAC during and after Luthman's chairmanship include firms that do business with the trash authority, including the South Jersey law firm Brown & Connery.

Brown & Connery employs longtime solicitor Bill Tambussi, who represents the Camden County Democratic Committee and is the personal attorney for party power broker George Norcross III.

Year after year, Brown & Connery takes in more money from its contract with the authority than it does from any other public entity in New Jersey.

Lawyers at the firm last year billed the authority for $628,826, which works out to an average of 10 hours of work every day of the year, including holidays and weekends.

That was a sharp decrease from previous years. A team of attorneys from Brown & Connery billed $1.9 million in 2008, or an average of 30 hours every day, and the firm has taken in $4.7 million in all during the last four years.

In an e-mail, Tambussi attributed the legal expenses to having multiple lawyers working on several complex and long-running lawsuits, two of which involved environmental contamination. In one of those cases, he wrote, the authority has collected $11.5 million in settlement money, which will be used for the remediation of the Pennsauken landfill.

at 856-779-3220 or mrao@phillynews.com.