KAIT-Jonesboro, AR-News, weather, sports, classifieds-Trashing Region 8: Poinsett County
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By Josh Harvison - bio | email
HARRISBURG, AR (KAIT) - The Poinsett County Judge's Office said Friday illegal dumping continues to be a problem. At an intergovernmental meeting Tuesday in Waldenburg, Mayor Marion Bearden of Tyronza said illegal dump sites have been discovered by city employees.
The problem has been around for several years. In a 3-mile radius of the Harrisburg city limits, the Solid Waste District found 17 illegal dump sites during a fly-over.
"I think it's pretty much widespread across rural Arkansas," said Poinsett County Judge Charles Nix.
Nix, who has been judge since January, said the topic of illegal dumping arose during his campaign. He said people were tired of unsightly dump sites in the county.
"A lot of folks would rather just dump it than come pay the small fee it takes to do that. And once somebody starts dumping in an area, then other people tend to follow suit and do that same problem," said Nix.
Nix said it costs $25 to dump Class 4 materials at the Poinsett County Landfill. Class 4 materials are lumber, couches, refrigerators and large items. Household materials receive Class 1 designation.
"We have a problem. Somebody will dump in the ditches, their couch into it or an old washing machine or, you see that, it happens," said Nix "It is unsightly, if they dump into the right-of-ways and ditches, then you've got drainage problems. And we have had some areas where we had enough dumped in there it created drainage problems for us."
"All you got to do, is like you say, drive down the road and you're going to see stuff like this right here, where people have thrown couches and everything else," said Harrisburg Mayor Donnie Faulkner. "They'd rather throw it out here on the side of the highway, and we're on the scenic byway here and it's a problem and it's an eyesore we need to get rid of."
Officials with the Poinsett County Sheriff's Department said inmates in the 309 program, where low-risk prisoners serve their time while doing community work, have cleaned illegal dump sites in public areas. Nix said the county can't touch dump sites on private property.
"You've got problems where people dump on private property and people complain about that but we have little control over that part of it," said Nix.
"We have county ordinances that make it illegal to dump in right-of-ways and those kinds of things, but trying to enforce it is difficult. you almost have to be able to find a name or something that you can provide hard evidence and then the sheriff's department probably has things to do that's more important than that," said Nix.
Several counties have implemented their own departments to deal with illegal dumping, but Faulkner said Poinsett County has no such department.
Nix said most residents have been upset with the look of the dump sites, but it also poses problems for city-wide utilities.
"Some people just follow suit, when they see some people dumping some place, they're say, well, that's probably a good place to get rid of it," said Nix.
"I think it's just a matter of personal responsibility that some people just, you know, it's easier to do that than take the extra time to haul it to a class 4 landfill somewhere and take care of it properly," said Nix. "I don't know if trying to have collection points around the county, would make a difference or in some point in time you could designate a couple of weeks throughout the year to try and set up some designation points would make it any better or not but that's something that we could look into."
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