Parks Struggling Against Illegal Dumping

Examples of illegal dumping at McGovern Park. Photos courtesy of Milwaukee County Parks.

Illegal Dumping is a problem in Milwaukee with no easy solution.

For Milwaukee County Parks, with over 15,000 acres, illegal dumping has for years been a drain on the department’s resources.

At a recent meeting of the Milwaukee County Board’s Finance Committee, Sup. Sequanna Taylor noted that McGovern Park has been used an illegal dumping spot for a while now. The supervisor said it appeared as though the dumpers were involved in cleaning out homes. “There was a whole front porch dumped over by the senior center in the park,” Taylor said.

Jim Tarantino, Parks deputy director, told Urban Milwaukee that the illegal dumping in McGovern Park is bad and has been going on for years, but, unfortunately, it’s one of a few “hotspots” in the parks system on the north and south sides of Milwaukee that are used for illegal dumping.

“And it’s not as if McGovern is worse than some of the other hotspots,” Tarantino said, “but it’s getting more activity because we’ve been shutting some of them down.”

The Little Menomonee River Parkway was a frequent hotspot for illegal dumping, but Parks recently shut down vehicle access in the parkway and the dumping has stopped. Meanwhile, dumping at McGovern has increased, Tarantino said.

Tarantino agreed with Taylor’s assessment and said it appears that landlords involved in evictions or contractors involved in home remodeling are dumping in county parks. But it’s not just them. Parks staff find construction waste like drywall and home items like entire furniture sets. But they also come across hazardous waste dumps, with items like hypodermic needles in the trash.

Parks has contracted with a private company to respond to some of the dump sites that have hazardous waste like needles, Tarantino said. “We don’t have safety equipment or training for that.”

The deputy director said that using a company for illegal dumps like this is the right way to keep parks staff safe,”but it’s an additional expense to the taxpayers to do that.”

It’s also not the only way that illegal dumping is a drain on the taxpayer’s dime. Most dump sites are cleaned up by parks staff, Tarantino said. It’s now apart of the daily work of staff at various parks around the county, including McGovern, Kosciuszko, Washington and Carver Parks, to respond to illegal dumping. The parks system is already understaffed and only has a fraction of the workers that once maintained and programmed it.

“And they have to go out and with their hands, pick up trash, and haul it back to our dumpsters,” he said.

There isn’t an easy solution, either. Tarantino said the department has looked into cameras, but installing the additional infrastructure needed for a camera system would be expensive and impermanent given the illegal dumpers’ tendency to change sites when Parks manages to shut one down. The City of Milwaukee set up a reporting system for illegal dumping, to make it easier to issue the $5,000 municipal citations to those engaged in it. It also offers $1,000 rewards to anyone catching illegal dumpers.

Conservation of natural areas is part of the department’s mission, Tarantino noted, and when people are just dumping trash in public parks it’s “demoralizing” for the people that work to keep them clean.

But the community can help, Tarantino said, noting that parks staff can’t be everywhere all the time.

“When they see something illegal happening like dumping, that’s people ruining their park in their neighborhood,” he said. “So let us know and we’ll help clean it up, but we really need to stop people from doing it in the first place.”