HOUSTON – Residents in one northeast Houston community are fed up with litterbugs using their neighborhood as an illegal dumping ground. They said there is so much trash it’s turned into both a public safety issue and a health hazard.
“It would be nice for people to stop doing it,” Toshibe Smith said.
“We live here and I don’t like to see it like this,” Andrea Brewer said.
More than just an eyesore, neighbors said there is so much trash along both sides of North Green River Driver, including large pieces of furniture, it’s basically like a ticking time bomb.
“It’s really dangerous. It gets so high that people can’t see coming out of the apartments. There have been several near wrecks,” Smith said.
Oftentimes, the culverts, they said are so full of trash, when it rains, it floods.
“And pushes the trash into the street and it can cause a serious wreck or somebody to lose their life because when you’re driving through it you never know what you’re going to hit,” Brewer said.
She added it’s an ongoing menace so Brewer contacted KPRC 2 Investigates after she and several church members claim to have reported it to the city of Houston through 311 numerous times....five to be exact.
“They say oh we’re going to take care of it but yet it still looks like it does,” Brewer said.
In a statement, the Chief Of Staff for Houston’s Solid Waste Department Veronica Lizama told KPRC 2: “The Solid Waste Department has received one illegal service dumping request for N. Green River Drive on July 26. As of today, July 29, the issue has been addressed and cleaned. An illegal dumping service request is allotted 30 days to complete. The other service requests belong to other departments. This is a known chronic illegal dumping site that the department has cleaned many times.”