It may soon be downright expensive for those caught tossing rubble and trash onto city streets.
The Long Beach City Council voted Tuesday for the city manager to create an outreach campaign and potentially stricter penalties for those who dump illegally in city limits.
It will come back before the council within 60 days for final approval.
This comes as smelly, rotting trash dumped in Long Beach’s poorest neighborhoods is routinely left at the doorstep and alleyways of residents.
“We see it across our city, our neighborhoods and our streets and our parks, along our railways, along the river,” said Councilmember Al Austin. “A lot of debris we see is caused by illegal dumping.”
Officials with the Department of Public Works, the agency responsible for maintaining the nearly one thousand miles of streets, alleys and storm drains, said that in August, it collected nearly 18,000 dumped items, as well as more than 1,300 mattresses.
Since the start of the year, the department has responded to more than 88,000 reports of illegally dumped items and collected about 1,800 tons of litter.
For Austin, the mold and stench are not even the worst things about the rubbish dropped in his district. Brush fires, catalyzed by excess garbage and overgrowth, have caught aflame in alleyways and along railroad tracks. “We’ve had several fires in the past couple of weeks related to this matter,” Austin said.
Since July, firefighters have responded to seven fires along the Union Pacific tracks, a Long Beach Fire Department spokesperson said.
It is an issue, Austin said, that is perpetrated partly by those “indifferent to the law,” as well as those who still don’t know the rules or that services are made available to them, especially in regard to construction waste.
That’s why staff will look into creating an outreach campaign to let residents and builders know that the city has programs in place to pick up bulk items and other refuse.
Raising the cost of fines is also on the table, Austin said. State law allows illegal dumping on public or private property to be punishable by a fine up to $10,000 or jail for up to six months. City fines run $110 per hour, based on the time the city spends on collection and disposal of the waste.
No potentially new numbers were given by the council, but a comparison provided included the counties of Contra Costa, San Benito, Alameda and Monterey, who have all raised their penalties by “thousands of dollars” to stymie illegal dumping.
In 2019, the Los Angeles City Council tripled its fines for illegal dumping, along with possible misdemeanor citation or six months in jail.
Officials brought up Pittsburg, Calif., as an example of one municipality that not only increased penalties for illegal dumping but also began offering a $250 reward to those with information that leads to a conviction.
“It’s an issue that impacts not only our quality of life but also puts a significant strain on our city resources and on those who care about maintaining the vibrancy of our city,” Austin said.
Councilmember Roberto Uranga, whose district neighbors Austin’s, asked for an amendment to the item to instruct “contractors to pick up their shit.”
He said his office continually receives complaints from renters in his district about contractors who renovate nearby condos and leave behind building materials rather than hauling them to a landfill.
“And because they’re renters, they really don’t have a say in how contractors should behave themselves,” Urganga said.