WARREN HILLS, Ohio -- NewsChannel5 uncovers how Ohio is being dumped on by other states and lawmakers failing to act.

5 On Your Side Chief Investigator Duane Pohlman tracks down the man some say is responsible.

Pohlman: Ohio is getting dumped on with construction and demolition debris.

Amie Crowder, neighbor: "Ohio's known as the Heart of it all, becomes the dump of it all."

Pohlman: Ohio's weak regulations have triggered dirt-cheap dumping.

Jack Shaner, Ohio Environmental Council: "Ohio has put the bullseye on its back."

Pohlman: In 2003, Ohio EPA said states were dumping nearly 3 million tons of waste on Ohio -- that's 40 percent of all construction and demolition waste dumped here.

At Warren Hills, thousands of tons a day came from New York and other East Coast states.

Debbie Roth, Our Lives Count Organization: "This is Mount Trashmore."

Pohlman: The result?

Mark Durno, EPA Emergency Response Coordinator: "The risk was real."

Pohlman: An environmental catastrophe.

Durno: "That's a leachate lake."

Pohlman: Where clouds of hydrogen sulfide …

Paige: "It smells really bad. Nasty!"

Pohlman: … made kids and adults sick.

Jackie Bush, neighbor: "Eye irritations, headaches, get sick to my stomach and throw up."

The Ohio EPA tried to do something, issuing hundreds of violations.

Joe Koncelik, Ohio EPA Director: "It certainly rose up the radar screen of the Ohio EPA."

Pohlman: But Ohio's weak laws, Ohio's EPA director says, made it tough to crack down.

Koncelik: "We have been a strong advocate for increased and strengthened regulations for construction and demolition material in Ohio."

Pohlman: Three years ago, Ohio EPA put its full weight behind Senate Bill 199 -- a proposal to plug Ohio's gaps by increasing testing and monitoring, banning any dump from being built over water supplies and by hiking the fees -- all to slow down the dumping.

Koncelik: "The more expensive you make it to dispose of waste in Ohio, the less financial incentive somebody has to send that waste a long distance to Ohio."

Pohlman: The state senate overwhelmingly passed SB 199.

But in late 2002, the Bill went to a committee in the House, where it stalled and died.

Senate Bill 199 never even made it to the floor of the House for a vote.

Koncelik: "We thought it was unfortunate that it did not make it out of the house."

Pohlman: State Senator Mark Dann says that was odd.

Dann: "They killed the Bill."

Pohlman: At the time, Larry Householder was the Speaker of the House.

Koncelik: "The Speaker of the House sets the priorities."

Pohlman: But the Speaker was balancing another priority -- getting re-elected.

And at the same time Senate Bill 199 came to the house, campaign records reveal Householder was receiving lots of money from the construction and demolition landfill industry -- $17,000 in all.

Dann says it's a classic case of "pay to play" in Ohio.

Dann: "Seventeen-thousand dollars right in the same window of time when the Bill was moving from the Senate to the House. There's no doubt in my mind that's what happened."

Larry Householder, former Speaker of the House: "I don't know why he would have blamed me."

Pohlman: Larry Householder, who is now the Perry County auditor, met me late at night at a rural gas station. The meeting came after I refused to go home, waiting at his office, his house and at the end of his driveway for hours.

When I wouldn't go away, he agreed to talk.

"Do you remember them giving the money?"

Householder: "No. Not really."

Pohlman: Householder insists he was not influenced.

Householder: "There's always folks out there that are raising money for campaigns, and if it was during an election time, I don't think that's unusual, but that didn't have anything to do with whether the Bill went out of the House or not."

Pohlman: But Senator Dann and others don't buy that.

Dann: "It is a classic example of what happens when you have pay-to-play politics in this state."