Dallas Cracks Down on Chronic Dumpsites With Cameras, Arrests and Shaming

Loretta Booker still speaks with frustration and disbelief about the time she called 911 to report that a couch at the end of her street was on fire.That was life on Concordia Lane a year ago, when its dead end had turned into a makeshift landfill. Furniture, clothes, tree limbs and construction debris were piled a few dozen feet from her house. Soon after the rubbish was cleared, more took its place."It was really nasty. It looked so bad," said Booker, 58, whose daughter also lives in her southeast Oak Cliff neighborhood, which is now one of the city's success stories in its crackdown on illegal dumping.City officials estimated a year ago that Dallas had 62 chronic dumpsites, almost all of them in the southern part of the city. By the summer, that number was reduced to 37. The end of Concordia Lane was one of the 25 sites removed from the list.  Continue reading...