News

April 25, 2010

Volunteers clean up Dupont dumping site

The site, known by locals as “dump road,” was cluttered with an array of junk items.

GINO TROIANI Times Leader Correspondent

DUPONT – “The junk must go!” was the mantra of volunteers early Saturday morning, all working to clean up a local illegal dumping site in the borough.

The project organized by the Pennsylvania Environmental Committee in partnership with the borough of Dupont took place on Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon with hopes of removing unwanted trash and debris from a piece of property located within the Grimes Industrial Park in Dupont.

The cleanup attracted around 50 volunteers from in and around the local community, ranging from high school and college students to concerned residents, all eager to roll up their sleeves and do their part.

“We’re out to help improve and clean up our environment and to try to bring awareness to people about all of the different illegal dump sites that are located in our area,” said Steven Schwartz, a sophomore at Wilkes University.

Before the cleanup, the site known by locals as “dump road,” was cluttered with an array of junk items such as old punching bags, television sets, scrap metal, electric appliances, children’s toys, plastic containers and mounds upon mounds of worn out tires. “We’re probably going to have around 300 to 400 when we’re finished,” said Stanley Knick Jr., president of Dupont Council.

Volunteer and Dupont resident Martha Doran explained that illegal dumping at the site has grown to be a major problem within the community over the last several years. She said that despite numerous efforts by borough officials to put an end to the dumping, the buildup of trash did not cease. “We’ve posted signs and the police have patrolled, but it’s just [too] hard,” said Doran. “We’re just trying to change that whole fa�ade. I think that because it’s [called] dump road, everyone just thinks that you could dump. We want to change that.”

The project, coordinated by Dupont borough and the PEC, a statewide environmental coordinating organization, is not the first of its kind. “We’ve had a cleanup program for the last four years where we’ve been doing illegal dump cleanups all over the county and the region,” said Julie A. McMonagle, vice president of the PEC’s Northeast Regional Office. “A survey was done of the county of illegal dump sites and there’s well over 200.” McMonagle said that over the last couple of years, the PEC has been able to team up with many local communities and clean up around 25 dump sites in Luzerne County alone, most recently in Hughestown and Avoca.

McMonagle explained that funding for the projects comes from both the state and federal governments along with the support from the state Department of Environmental Protection, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and private donations.

“It’s generally a couple of thousand of dollars per site,” said McMonagle. She added that between the volunteer workers and the heavy equipment donated by Dupont municipality, they were able to cut costs drastically.

Despite improving environmental conditions, state Rep. Mike Carroll, D- Avoca, said that the cleanup of the site also ties in with the local businesses in the industrial park. “It’s an effort to try and make sure that the 2,800 jobs that are held up in the Grimes park stay there and try to enhance others to move into [the] industrial park so that we can create more jobs and more opportunities,” said Carroll. “We have a beautiful new road up there, and to have this dump site cleaned up adjacent to the road is really important.”

Once the site is complete, Carroll explained the borough will be working with surrounding communities to start a composting operation within the next year.

McMonagle said in order to finish up with the waste removal, a group of inmates from the Luzerne County Prison will be working at the site on Monday and Tuesday of this week to both load the gathered trash for removal and clean up any left over junk. From there, the trash will be disposed of by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation as part of the Great PA Cleanup Project and the hundreds of tires will be hauled to Mahantango Enterprises, a recycling center in Liverpool, Pa.

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