Top prosecutors and elected officials in Alameda and Contra Costa counties joined together Wednesday to announce new funding and strategies aimed at preventing illegal dumping and waste.
Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley, whose district includes parts of Oakland that are affected by the problem, said something must be done because illegal dumping is “a plague on our society” and affects residents’ quality of life.
Joining Miley and others at a news conference at the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office in Oakland, Assemblywoman Rebecca Bauer-Kahan said she has secured $750,000 in state funds to allow for the creation of a one-year pilot program in Alameda and Contra Costa counties that will focus on increased law enforcement efforts to combat illegal dumping.
Bauer-Kahan said the funds will pay for enforcement officers in both counties and will help establish best practices that will be used to enforce illegal dumping laws across the state.
“This state funding will provide our counties with the resources they need to combat this difficult problem,” Bauer-Kahan said.
The problem is caused, Bauer-Kahan said, by unscrupulous commercial haulers as well as individual violators who illegally dispose of construction debris, mattresses and all sorts of trash, wreaking havoc on the environment and ruining neighborhood streets.
The funding will provide both counties with the ability to have at least one full-time officer to enforce illegal dumping laws to make a big impact in tackling the problem, she said.
Miley said Alameda County will have two sheriff’s deputies enforce the laws full time and Contra Costa County District Attorney Diana Becton said one deputy from her county will focus on the problem.
In addition, Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O’Malley said several attorneys in her office will prosecute illegal dumping cases.
“Illegal dumping is an environmental justice issue that disproportionately affects disadvantaged communities and impacts the sense of well-being of all who live and work in neighborhoods where it is rampant,” O’Malley said.
She added that dumping hot spots become breeding grounds for vermin and impact public health.
Becton said, “Illegal dumping puts entire communities at risk. It can harm the environment, endanger wildlife, threaten the health and safety of residents and adversely affect property values.”
Miley said he hopes the fight to end illegal dumping can be expanded to the rest of California if the pilot program is successful.
“This problem of illegal dumping knows no boundaries and this is a statewide issue,” he said.
Miley said if Alameda and Contra Costa counties are successful in stopping illegal dumping, the people doing the dumping will move to Marin County, San Mateo County and other areas in the state.
“If we don’t stop it across the state, they will go somewhere else,” he warned.
26 comments
I believe the real problem, second to the lack of respect for our community, is the high prices to dump legally. While there is an effort to reduce waste by charging exorbitant fees at the dump, it is simply unaffordable to some families and they dump illegally. While I advocate and practice recycling whenever possible, the cost to get rid of an old mattress or appliance is extremely expensive. Lowering the cost at the county dumping facilities, or subsidizing the cost, would probably significantly reduce the illegal dumping.
Clayton above is 100% correct & I totally agree
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I WAS GOING TO SAY THE SAME THING @Claycord
That’s where they should be spending the ‘state fund’ money. 100%
Will they similarly target people pissing and taking a dump on the streets?
XJ: People pissing and taking a dump on the streets should be incarcerated. They are endangering the population at large.
Waste of money. They are dealing with the symptoms not the root cause. Instead of spending millions trying to catch and prosecute ppl, they should create subsidized county recycling centers that will allow ppl to dispose of bulky trash at reasonable rates conveniently (ie offer pickup service). This will solve the problem at a fraction of the cost and also wont create a hostile environment.
Range rd in Pittsburg. Every week there’s a new pile of trash.
While it’s agreed upon that it’s expensive to both go to the dumps, and to try to apprehend all the cheap slobs who dump on the county roads, how about placing a few of those trail Cams used to capture wildlife at places like Bailey, Kirker pass, and some of their other favorite drops…. Drop it back in their driveways and fine them….
Agreed, Clayton is correct about dump transfer station fees.
Drive by area of Pittsburg transfer station almost daily and see piles left by people, some of whom probably didn’t have enough money on them to be let into transfer station.
Solution for problem was tried and Worked in Oakland back in 2014.
https://www.eastbayexpress.com/SevenDays/archives/2014/04/10/east-oakland-dump-sites-allow-residents-to-legally-trash-bulk-items
IF stepped up enforcement does stem some of the illegal dumping, it will just as it was before enforcement effort started.
Doesn’t the trash pick up company have 2 days per year you can throw out junk, and one free day to arrange for pick up? Are people just too lazy to make arrangements?
I don’t know about Concord Disposal, but Republic Services which serves Clayton offers curbside pickup of bulk items, chairs, mattresses, old water heaters, etc., at no charge. They ask that you call to schedule pickup. You can schedule two free cleanups of branches, prunings, etc., per year. Call for details because there are guidelines to follow, request their brochure if you don’t have one. They usually send it out yearly.
It’s illegal contractors and looters. They prey on the innocent. I’d say stiff fines, substantial jail times, and even rewards could combat most of the treachery. Other than that programs that actually purchase the refuse would help out too. And yes education could rehabilitate an offender or two.
If you want to get illegal dumping in our city, why not make all our dumps in the state free and make the government subsidized these business to allow them to operate.
Thank you for your insightful comment. A lot of people don’t have the $50, so you see the result. 750,000 taxpayer dollars would pay for 15,000 dump runs.
Now that’s Making A Difference, but it ain’t how it works!
My neighbor doesn’t have garbage collection. The City of Concord knows this but does nothing about it.. He just loads up his truck with trash and in the middle of the night, he goes somewhere and dumps it out.
More common than you might think. I’m sure some of it makes it to the
Bailey Rd throw and go.
Daniel great ideal. Use are already high taxes to subsidize. Sounds good to me.
A large majority of these are repeat offenders. Did anyone see ‘The Cove’?
Set up battery SD card / wifi cameras at some of the hot areas. If you have seen ‘The Cove’, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
Sorry, but I just dumped a couch and it cost me $80!!!! and it all fit in the 6 ft bed of my truck…just sayin
the rediculous high prices at “the dumps” causes people to illegally dump waste. If the prices were at least reasonable, we wouldn’t need to spend $750K on more officers. This makes no sense because people dump things because they don’t have money. So, the people who get fined can’t and won’t pay the fine and putting them in jail will cost the tax payers more money to house these people on top of the $750K. Use the money to let people dump their crap for a low fee. Common sense people.
Common sense? Where politicians and their cronies are involved?
That’ll never happen.
Time to take back the gubmint.
As always, government created the very problem it then rushes to ‘solve’.
How? By raising dump fees to cover their political cronies’ six-figure salaries, pensions, & lifetime medical benefits; under the cover of ‘environmental issues’.
For decades the dump remained the most attractive option for residential trash disposal. That ended over thirty years ago.
Garbage companies need to lower their fees. They have gotten inordinately high in the past few years for residential service encouraging this sort of thing. Maybe they are financing expensive equipment or something, but service has gotten just too expensive. And, the packaging on everything is terrible, too. Things seem to be excessively packaged anymore. If you buy online, you have all of that to dispose of, as well.
Why not just drive it over to San Francisco? The new D/A isn’t going to prosecute that crime anyway….
The profit motive has to be removed from the trash collection/cleanup business. Don’t renew Waste Management, Garaventa, or other monopolies. Institute utility districts managed by publicly elected Boards of Directors (like CCWD). That way we only pay what it costs to provide the services, not personal profits.
$750000 is a drop in the bucket, you can be sure that by the time the money trickles down to physical action there will be practically none left.
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