State officials to launch anti-dumping campaign

By MATT WUNSCHE
Collegian Staff Writer

Nobody likes a litterbug, especially when the trash they drop is old tires and hazardous waste.

Dumping trash in unauthorized areas has always been a crime, but with the recent attention paid to illegal trash-dumping sites in Philadelphia, the city has become the target of State Attorney General Mike Fisher's plans to fight polluters.

Earlier this month, Fisher presented $15,000 to a nonprofit group concerned with beautification initiatives in Philadelphia to help buy equipment to stop dumping in the city.

The money, Fisher said in a press release, was taken from the fine paid by an environmental offender. It will be used to set up cameras and decoy cameras at 10 of the city's most popular illegal dump spots.

Illegal dumping in Pennsylvania, however, is not a problem confined to the urban environments of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, said Christopher Constantini, chief deputy attorney general.

"It's proportional throughout the state," he said.

In 1997, 24 individuals and seven companies were charged and more than $373,000 in fines was collected for environmental crimes, according to statistics from the state attorney general's office.

For example, a 1997 investigation by the state attorney general's office discovered Christopher Tate, a Pennsylvania resident who was hired to dispose of hazardous waste properly, was dumping the open barrels from his pick-up truck at the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site near Altoona. Several 55-gallon drums of waste material spilled their contents near a stream that feeds the City of Hollidaysburg Reservoir.

Tate agreed to a plea bargain and was sentenced to 10 to 24 months in prison, a $5,000 fine and a $5,000 restitution payment to the Blair County Hazmat team.

Christina Novak, press secretary for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said there has been an increase in the amount of trash legally dumped in Pennsylvania from out of state in the past 10 to 15 years.

Most of the illegal dumping in the state, however, comes from local businesses looking to save money on disposal costs, Constantini said.

Illegal dump sites, said Rick Morrison, assistant press secretary at the DEP, pose a serious environmental danger.

For example, tires often are dumped illegally because it is difficult and expensive to dispose of them dispose properly. But tires can easily catch fire and when filled with water, they are attractive breeding grounds to mosquitoes.

Hazardous materials, such as industrial and medical waste, can badly contaminate the water supply if they seep into the ground or waterways.

• State College talks trash