Hollister
– Illegal trash dumping is an ubiquitous problem in the county –
as evidenced by the several tons of garbage pulled out of the San
Benito River on Earth Day recently – and some locals may be
contributing to the scourge without even knowing it.
Hollister – Illegal trash dumping is an ubiquitous problem in the county – as evidenced by the several tons of garbage pulled out of the San Benito River on Earth Day recently – and some locals may be contributing to the scourge without even knowing it.
Supervisor Anthony Botelho recently tracked down one of those unwitting contributors on Saturday after he found the person’s name and phone number mixed in with a pile of garbage illegally dumped on property his mother owns along the river. That person, a Hollister resident, told Botelho that a man in a black truck offered to haul her trash away for $20. She accepted the offer, and her trash, along with that of others, ended up on Botelho’s property rather than at the county dump.
People dumping trash illegally, whether it’s someone else’s or their own, is a constant problem for rural counties like San Benito, Sheriff Curtis Hill said.
“It happens all the time,” he said. “Bottom line: some people just don’t want to pay the fee.”
The county charges $52 per ton to dispose of trash at the John Smith Road Landfill.
District Attorney John Sarsfield said that, if caught and convicted, someone who dumps trash illegally faces a fine of about $1,000, jail time or both. More serious cases, like when chemicals and hazardous materials are improperly disposed of may be charged as felonies, with prison time and possibly hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, he said.
There are a variety of government agencies that might notify the District Attorney’s office about a possible illegal dumper, Sarsfield said, including the local Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Fish Wildlife Service. People whose garbage is dumped illegally could be held civilly liable, even if they thought that it would be disposed of properly at the landfill. In Botelho’s case, the woman promised to go to his property and clean up her share of the mess.
“We take these types of cases very seriously,” Sarsfield said. “If a person is caught, we go ahead and prosecute.”
While illegal dumping is frustrating enough on its own, that people are paying others to haul their trash away under the assumption that it will be disposed of legally at the dump makes it even worse, Botelho said.
“I dig through the trash, like dirty diapers, and try to find the name. Usually it’s not the same individual who dumped the trash,” he said. “The first thing, I think, it scams people who are probably vulnerable, and that’s a tremendous crime in my book. The second thing is that it pollutes the upper watershed, where we are, the lower watershed and all the way out to Monterey Bay.”
Last Saturday – which was Earth Day – as Botelho was busy trying to find out who was responsible for the pile of garbage on his mother’s property, a group of locals were hard at work hauling trash out of the San Benito River.
About 65 volunteers, students and adults, spent the day cleaning up the river, Integrated Waste Management Director Mandy Rose told the Board of Supervisors during its Tuesday meeting. The group hauled out more than 13 tons of garbage, 120 tires, 10 large appliances and 15 mattress, Rose told the board. She could not be reached for further comment Thursday.
San Benito County Farm Bureau President Paul Hain said that people who dump illegally are interested in getting rid of garbage quickly and with no expense and likely don’t think of how it may affect landowners and the environment.
“It really ticks you off, that’s what it does,” he said. “If somebody is going to dump trash, I don’t think they’re thinking a whole lot about pollution.”
Often, Hain said, people hide their garbage in with a burn pile on a farm or orchard. Most farmers don’t notice the trash, he said, until they light the pile and a black, toxic smoke rises from it. Farmers can be held liable if they inadvertently burn trash, according to Hain.
Botelho said that most often the burden of illegal dumping falls on the owners of private property and that cleaning up others’ trash of is an infuriating experience.
“It’s been a constant effort to deal with this and clean it up. It’s the responsibility owner ultimately, and we clean it up because we don’t want to look at it,” he said. “You feel violated, whether you own a home and a yard or you own a thousand acres. When somebody trashes it, it’s a violation. And it’s just plain frustrating. You’d like to catch that person and find out the logic of it, because the landfill isn’t that costly.”
Before paying a person to haul garbage, Botelho suggested, be sure to check if they have a business or contractors license.
Luke Roney covers local government and the environment for the Free Lance. Reach him at 831-637-5566 ext. 335 or at [email protected]
