'Illegal dumping can cost you up to $4,000': Houston City Council approves fine increase for illegal dumping

The City of Houston recently doubled fines for illegal dumping as the mayor encourages residents to report dumpers.

"Illegal dumping can cost you up to $4,000," Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said in a June 14 Twitter post. "If you see or have information on violators, please call Crime Stoppers or local law enforcement. Keeping our city clean is everyone’s responsibility."

Reporters of illegal dumping or dumpers also can be reported via the city's 311 system.

Illegal dumping is nothing new in Houston. In February of last year, the city council's Regulator and Neighborhood Affairs Committee reviewed a presentation about illegal dumping in Houston. The report included a process for how illegal dumping is supposed to be handled. That process includes Houston's Department of Neighborhoods or police departments investigating residential complaints about illegal dumpsites to 311 and abatement orders to be issued to the city's Solid Waste Management Department.

The report included a breakdown of 31,107 complaints between 2015 and 2019.

Items most often dumped include household and yard waste, marine equipment, construction materials, hazardous and medical waste, and "dead animals and an occasional body," the report said.

"Small contractors and residents within the area are most often the culprits," the report said. "Poor lighting, vacant lots, open ditches and vacant/abandoned homes are high on the list of dumpsites."

Illegal dumping has been an issue for decades, particularly in the Houston's lower-income communities, and the city received thousands of complaints per year but prosecutions are comparatively few, KPRC 2 reported in October.

Houston's 311 system received more 8,000 calls in 2019 for trash dumping or illegal dumpsites, according to the KPRC 2 news story.

There's no excuse, Super Neighborhood Alliance Public Safety Health Chairman Tomaro Bell said in the news story.

"Children live in this community," Bell said. "Why should they not be able to safely walk around and be able to play in this community without something happening? This is a travesty."

In May, Houston City Council approved an increase in fines for illegal dumping from $2,000 to $4,000.