Costly Tire Dumping Issue Addressed by Supervisors

LUNENBURG – The Lunenburg County Board of Supervisors recently discussed a costly issue that they are looking to stop before it could ultimately lead to budget problems.

County Administrator Tracy Gee said that the county has now loaded up two trailers of tires from convenience sites and there continues to be a problem with people dropping them off when the locations are open without being manned.

Mrs. Gee said that each trailer comes with a $1,000 charge to the county to haul the tires away and that this is something “not in the county budget.” She would go on to say that signs are now up at the locations noting that dumping tires at the convenience sites is not allowed, but that tires can be taken to the CFS Landfill for disposal for a cost.

She stated, “Most tire distributors/installation vendors assess a fee per tire for disposal costs when replacing tires on a vehicle.  Therefore, citizens should utilize this service by the distributor instead of paying for disposal at the landfill or improperly disposing at our sites.  The charge at the landfill is $3 per four-wheel vehicle tire and possibly more for larger or commercial equipment tires.”

In  Sec. 62-32 of the county policies, it states, “It shall be unlawful for any person to discard or dump in or along any street, road (on or off the right-of-way), alley, stream, body of water, field or woods any household or commercial solid waste, rubbish, refuse, junk, vehicle or vehicle parts, rubber tires, appliances, furniture or any other material or equipment, on public or private property, except in litter receptacles provided for public use for the deposit of such materials or except in an area designated by the state department of health as a permitted disposal site or licensed sanitary landfill.”

The code goes on to say that “violation of any of the provisions of this article shall be punished as a Class 2 misdemeanor, as defined by the Code of Virginia.”

Supervisor Edward Pennington noted that some people may come to the sites that are open 24 hours and dump the tires when nobody is there to see them.

Supervisor Wayne Hoover said that he would suggest looking at placing cameras at the locations that are open in this manner. He had made this suggestion previously when there had been some vandalism at a location. He stated, “I highly suggest we look into putting cameras at these locations to monitor such things as this. I can assure you that if we find and prosecute the people responsible, we will not continue to have this problem.” He also noted that it would put the cost of these actions on the responsible people and not on the county or other citizens.

Supervisor Dr. Frank Bacon said that in the past cameras were not clear enough to identify license plates or people, but with the advancements in this area, this is something that should be examined now.

Mrs. Gee said that this is a situation where the problem can hopefully be corrected and not get to the point where a fee or increase in tax bills would be needed to help offset cost to the county for this illegal dumping of tires. She stated, “We want to deal with this issue now and not get to the point where we have to close the 24 hour site at night.”

Mr. Hoover stated, “These are nice sites and 99.9 percent of the people use them in the correct manner.”

The group has placed signs at the locations to remind people not to dump tires at the convenience sites and have referred the issue to the landfill committee to further examine using cameras to help with finding and ultimately prosecuting anyone still dumping tires.