Could Park Friends Help Prevent Illegal Dumping?

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

Milwaukee County Parks will explore a unique way to take on illegal dumping in the parks next year.

This kind of dumping has been a nuisance throughout the parks system and a drain on Parks’ limited resources. Sup. Shawn Rolland drafted an amendment to the 2024 county budget asking the department to look into developing a neighborhood-watch-style program for the parks to “crowdsource the eyes across the county,” as Rolland put it.

Parks officials have said in the past that the problem of illegal dumping is difficult to solve, in large part because of the sheer size of the parks system. It would be difficult to put up enough cameras or staff enough Park Rangers to take on the problem. When the department takes action to shut down an illegal dumping hot spot, the dumpers move elsewhere.

Rolland told his colleagues in October he wants Parks to work on developing “a way that we could have everyone in the community be incented in some way to be able to report illegal dumping or whatever issues are happening in the parks.”

Parks Director Guy Smith told supervisors that the parks system had a park watch program when he first started with the department. “The impetus was frankly safety at that point,” Smith said, “certainly that is a concern today, but illegal dumping continues to be a nuisance for all of us.”

The watch program morphed into many of the park friends groups that exist today. These groups fundraise for their local parks and activate them with community events. Smith said a potential program could include outreach aimed at creating more friend groups and connecting them with the system’s rangers.

Sup. Juan Miguel Martinez said he supported an expansion of the network of friends groups, adding he had concerns about a neighborhood watch-style program. “I also get kind of wary like, when that happens, all the sudden there’s a group of black teenagers and somebody’s like calling the cops on them,” Martinez said.

Rolland said the amendment was not prescribing anything specific. “This is only asking the parks department to develop a proposal that we could look at,” he said.

Sup Sequanna Taylor has been one of the supervisors raising the issue of illegal dumping, noting that McGovern Park has been a hot spot in the past.

“I think it is great to go with the friends groups or with some of the community people,” Taylor said. “A lot of people do want to see the parks clean and don’t know how to get involved.”

Rolland also raised the possibility of an incentive for reporting illegal dumping, suggesting that if someone is fined some of the money from the fine could go to the person who reported the problem.

The City of Milwaukee set up a reporting system for illegal dumping. If it successfully catches a dumper, it can issue a $5,000 municipal citation, and it also offers $1,000 rewards to anyone who catches illegal dumpers. More than 100 of the county’s parks are in the City of Milwaukee, Director Smith said, adding that perhaps the county’s program could “tap into” the city’s citations and rewards.