Recent illegal materials have been found at the Jefferson yard waste dump site.

During the City’s streets/sewer/sanitation/water committee meeting this week, more discussion took place of how to properly police rule breakers at the City’s free yard waste dump site.

City Administrator Mike Palmer says the only materials allowed at the site at Daubendiek Park are yard waste items like grass clippings, leaves, twigs and branches.  Everything else, including whole trees are not allowed.

He talks about what the City crews have found when they go out to the site to organize it.

“When our sanitation people go out there to start cleaning the site up, they find a lot of plastic bags out there.  They may have grass clippings in them, but the plastic bags are not allowed.  Found pallets out there, just plywood and two-by-fours.  That’s a problem for us if the Department of Natural Resources would really want to get picky about it and catch it, they would close the site.”

Palmer points out that the site is for Jefferson residents only and that only contractors working in Jefferson may use the site to dispose of their yard waste.

The committee talked about putting up security cameras and locking the gate at night.  Other possibilities is to establish an hours of operations instead of leaving it open 24-hours.  However, no decision was made.

Palmer urges residents to self-police the area and report anyone who is not abiding by the rules to call City Hall at 386-3111 or the Law Enforcement Center at 386-2136.