The County of San Benito is addressing the issue of illegal dumping with new initiatives for 2024, including a new online reporting tool for county residents to pinpoint illegal dumping sites.
The county has also raised its dumping fines to up to $10,000, the highest possible in the state of California.
In a Facebook post last week, District 2 Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki announced the new reporting website as part of his and other board members’ efforts to curb the problem.
“San Benito County has launched a new tool for residents to report illegal dumping. I successfully advocated, along with Supervisor Dom Zanger, for a more aggressive approach to address illegal dumping and enforcement of illegal dumping,” Kosmicki said in the post.
The new initiatives are a tandem effort between the board of supervisors and the county’s integrated waste management division.
The reporting tool has yet to get an official rollout, said Celina Stotler, manager of integrated waste management for the county, and there might be some changes to it before its official launch in February.
Currently, the website lets residents type in an address or drop a pin on a map to report illegal dumping. They can also upload photos of the waste and leave comments.
County staff have identified 18 illegal dumping hotspots spread across the most rural parts of San Benito County. Kosmicki said in an interview that residents have consistently complained about the issue.
“[There are a high] number of complaints and the vigor that people have with those complaints as far as just being frustrated, [is strong]. So, yeah, I regularly get complaints,” Kosmicki said.
Kosmicki’s District 2 is facing the brunt of the problem, and he said that the most active hotspots are along the Salinas Road/San Juan Grade corridor near Aromas, and near Merrill Street and Searle Road on the west side of the county.
The board of supervisors is taking the matter seriously, and in August 2023 voted to raise the fines for illegal dumping exponentially.
The fines went up from $100 for the first offense to $2,500, with the fine for a third violation increasing to $10,000. These fines are some of the highest in the state, with the City of San Jose being one of the only other cities fining illegal dumpers that high.
The county also proposed installing license plate reading cameras, new signage and fencing at some of the dumping hotspots in order to discourage people from leaving their waste.
But local officials are not only using punitive measures to inform residents of the consequences of these illegal activities.
“Education is also important there, to let residents know it is a crime and there are penalties, and so we’re going to be putting more signage throughout the county,” Stotler said.
Integrated waste management is also informing residents of free programs like the mattress recycling program, available through the Mattress Recycling Council. A door-to-door campaign and informational events are also in the works, Stotler said.
The clean up of the Salinas Road/San Juan Grade corridor has already begun and will be completed sometime between March and April. The site will serve as a test run of the license plate readers, signage and fencing, according to Stotler.
Kosmicki wants the community to contribute to the area’s beautification.
“This is a beautiful community and people move here and they live here because of the open spaces and the beauty of the surroundings,” Kosmicki said. “Having these items dumped and having this trash dumped all over the place…is a deterrent to really maintaining a beautiful community.”
Maybe stop charging extra at the landfill for dumping furniture items. It just encourages illegal dumping. Penalties are good, and barriers to doing the right thing (like added cost) are bad.