One plumbing inspector who was not arrested said the city was partly responsible for the problem.

"Our goal is not to track every plumbing inspector everywhere they go, it's to improve the system," Mr. Topping said.

Miles was a plumber by trade and served as a plumbing inspector for the city of Odessa, Texas in addition to running his own plumbing business.

"You could see the tubes hanging in the air," said Thomas J. Glennon, a plumbing inspector at the site.

After the trials in 1995, the men returned to their jobs as plumbing inspectors at the Buildings Department.

But proponents argued that recent arrests of dozens of plumbing inspectors on corruption charges made a radical reform necessary.

Recent convictions toppled a county legislator, a zoning board member, the town's highway superintendent, two contractors, a senior plumbing inspector, a maintenance supervisor and others.

Just try building a moat without getting permission from the plumbing inspector first.

The arrested inspectors represented about two-thirds of the city's plumbing inspectors.

Three former plumbing inspectors and a former boiler inspector were also charged.