Illegal trash dumping frustrates residents

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By Tom Saul | Saturday, July 7, 2007 6:55 PM CDT | () comments

The no dumping sign along S. Concord in Davenport.

Whenever she sees a truck loaded with brush or trash that is not covered by a tarp while rolling down South Concord Street in Davenport, Mary Brunning jumps in her car and gives chase.

In her mind, she said, the absence of a tarp means only one thing. “They aren’t going to the landfill and that junk is probably going to end up in the woods” along the road that hugs the Mississippi River where she has lived since 1965.

Most recently, Brunning said, she confronted an elderly man and his grandson who were in the process of dumping a load of old seats that looked like they came from a fast-food restaurant. She took down their license plate number and forced them to pick up the seats before moving along.

“He asked me not to write down the number,” Brunning said. “I told him, ‘How would you like me to come and dump stuff like this by your house?’ Imagine, showing his grandson that it’s all right to do something like that.”

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources, or DNR, gets more complaints by far about illegal dumping of household, farm and business waste than any other activity, said Dennis Ostwinkle, supervisor of the agency’s regional office that covers Clinton, Muscatine and Scott counties.

“In our 16-county area last year, we had 146 complaints of illegal dumps,” he said. “Throughout the state, there were 638 complaints. They are the largest source of complaints of anything we are responsible for.”

But the regulation and cleanup of illegal dumps is fragmented, with illegal dumping being handled by a variety of state, county and city agencies across the state, said Tom Anderson, a senior environmental specialist for the DNR. A series of forums scheduled for mid-July across Iowa will aim to get public input on the topic so rules allowing more comprehensive handling of illegal dumps can be proposed to the Legislature next year.

“One of the big things will be to recommend a funding source for cleanup,” he said. “There used to be a scrap tire management fund, but that money is all gone.”

Illegal dumps can range from piles of trash to spots that have been used for years to dispose of a variety of household, farm and business garbage and trash, DNR enforcement officers say. Items that are dumped run the gamut, but they usually include large quantities of old tires, appliances, mattresses, junked autos and plastic.

The DNR’s current system for dealing with illegal dumps is “complaint-driven,” meaning the agency does not investigate a dump site or look for the dumper unless it gets a complaint, Ostwinkle said. If the investigation does not identify the illegal dumper, there is is not likely to be any cleanup.

“There is an exception for sites where hazardous materials are found,” he said. “In cases like that, we can have a have a site named a superfund site by the federal (Environmental Protection Agency), which then pays for cleanup.”

In Scott County, cities and the county health department also take complaints about illegal dumping. South Concord Street’s heavy vegetation and many secluded areas make it a prime target for illegal dumpers, said Jackie Hall, a health department spokesperson.

If the department gets a call and inspectors can determine who did the the dumping, they can force cleanup, she said. Dumpers are required to pick up the debris, take it to the county landfill and produce a receipt to show that it was disposed of properly.

“If we can’t find out who did it, it is left to the property owner to clean it up,” she said. “It may be unfair, but that is one of the responsibilities of being a property owner.”

Meeting will be in davenport on july 18

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources will hold a series of nine forums across the state July 17-18 to take public input on what to do about illegal dumping. A forum has been scheduled in Davenport at 6:30 p.m. July 18 in the Eastern Iowa Community College District’s Kahl Education Center, 326 W. 3rd St., Room 300.

Tom Saul can be contacted at (563) 383-2453 or tsaul@qctimes.com. Comment on this story at qctimes.com.