| Share this: | ||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
Findings of Six County Illegal Dump Surveys Now Available
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful Friday released reports for 6 counties from their Illegal Dumpsite Survey Program: Bucks, Lycoming, Monroe, Potter, Sullivan, and Tioga counties.
“The purpose of an illegal dump survey is to assess and document as many illegal dumpsites as possible within a county,” says Shannon Reiter, President of Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful. “The survey is a tool that can be used for planning purposes within a community, provide valuable insight into development of solid waste and recycling programs, and be used to gain support for funding for public awareness programs and education, as well as generate funds to clean the existing dumpsites.”
In order to develop a comprehensive strategic plan to address illegal dumping including public policy, proper resource allocation, community education, and cleanup and abatement efforts, Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful embarked on a statewide illegal dump survey program in 2005. KPB believes that in order to truly address the root causes associated with illegal dumping, the problem needed to be better defined.
Illegal dumping mostly occurs in remote and secluded places, rural areas where few persons live, and the roads that are less traveled. However, for many people who are residents of an urban area, an illegal dump is often within a one-mile radius of their home.
Overall, very few people are aware of the widespread problem of illegal dumping in Pennsylvania. Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful illegal dump surveys educate state, county, and local officials, as well as citizens, about the problem of illegal dumping and provide valuable data about the dumpsites and the community in which they reside.
The survey process typically takes a year to complete. Municipalities, state agencies, environmental groups, and other key stakeholders are contacted and information regarding known dumpsites is gathered.
Surveyors then document known and unknown sites driving public roadways. Standardized assessment forms are used to collect data, pictures are taken for documentation, and GPS coordinates are recorded for mapping purposes. Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful surveys do not include private dumps or farm dumps.
Funding for this latest round of surveys was provided through a grant from the Department of Environmental Protection.
Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful has surveyed 55 counties, locating 5,759 dumpsites with a total estimated tonnage of 17,088 tons. The illegal dump surveys are available online. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
7/25/2011 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Go To Preceding Article Go To Next Article | ||||||||||||||||||||||||