Fort Worth

Illegal Toilet Dump Site Cleaned-Up

Property owners cleaned up, on the same day the city planned to do so

Six abandoned, destroyed and illegally dumped toilets are no longer an eyesore along Wagley Robertson Road in far northwest Fort Worth.

A resident first told NBC 5 about the problem on Monday, saying they showed up around mid-December, visible from the backyards of many resident's homes.

Some of the toilets were smashed, some still had their boxes and some sat just like they would in your home bathroom. They were mostly obscured by roadside trees, but it was clear the porcelain privies didn't belong there.

"They were destroyed just sitting out there and kind of a shock to the neighborhood," said Audrey Ortiz.

Ortiz and her family certainly noticed them, saying the quiet community is usually devoid of such eyesores. But by Tuesday afternoon the toilets were gone, hauled off by the property owner where they were illegally dumped.

The city's code enforcement department says it received an anonymous call about the dump site on January 6. A code officer was sent that same day to the site to assess the health and safety of the site.

Once it was determined the site was on private property, the property owners were notified they had 14 days to remove the illegally dumped items from their property. The city was prepared to removed the items itself on Tuesday, but the Houston-based property owner informed the code officer Tuesday morning that it would send a crew to do the work.

By 2:30 p.m., the month long mess was finally cleaned up.

"They're cleaned up, supposedly, so, happy again," Ortiz said.

While the items dumped along Wagley Robertson Road were certainly unique, illegal dumping is by no means a rarity in Fort Worth. It happens all across the city and almost every day, but the problem is getting better.

"Back in 2002-03 we collected over 12,000 tons of illegally dumped material throughout the city and last year it was approximately 3,000 tons," said Kim Mote, assistant director of code compliance and the solid waste division. So it's gotten a lot better, but it's still is a blight on the community."

Mote says increased enforcement, more bulk drop-off locations and citizens efforts are the likely reasons why there's been such an improvement the last decade.

"More responsible actions by the people of Fort Worth, absolutely," Mote said.

Bad actions of course clearly still happen.

"It's unexpected in this neighborhood," Ortiz said.

But it's a crime the city hopes it can flush down the drain.

And in this particular case Mote says everything was done correctly, someone called in the issue to 817-392-1234 to alert code compliance. The code officer followed procedure and 14 days later the mess is gone.

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