PA CleanWays, Inc. has announced it will conduct illegal dumpsite surveys in 11 counties in the fall with funding provided by the Department of Environmental Protection and the Richard King Mellon Foundation.

The counties include: Bedford, Berks, Crawford, Fulton, Lackawanna, Lawrence, McKean, Montgomery, Schuylkill, Somerset, and Venango.

PA CleanWays has surveyed 15 counties since 2005, locating over 1,700 dumpsites with a total estimated tonnage of 7,800 tons. PA CleanWays hopes to finish dumpsite surveys in every county in the Commonwealth by 2012.

The illegal dump surveys are designed to educate state, county, and local officials about the problem of illegal dumping and provide valuable data about the dumpsites and the community in which they reside to address the problem through cleanups, municipal waste collections, and recycling programs.

“Locating dumpsites and assessing how big of a problem illegal dumping is in Pennsylvania is a vital step to addressing the solution,” says Shannon Reiter, President of PA CleanWays. “Once the sites are identified, assessed, and mapped, we can use the surveys to prioritize sites for cleanup and abatement, document problem materials within each dumpsite, develop plans for proper disposal, and provide a benchmark to measure cleanup progress.”

For more information on illegal dumping, visit the PA CleanWays website..

6/29/2007