Houston officials fund fight against illegal dumping
HOUSTON — As the city struggles to address a multimillion-dollar illegal dumping problem, some Houston City Council members are taking matters into their own hands, spending tens of thousands of their allotted funds to bankroll cleanup teams.
Illegal dumping has been a longstanding problem in Houston, posing environmental and physical risks to nearby communities. Contaminants from improperly discarded waste can leak into soil and groundwater, and the waste itself can attract mosquitoes, rats and other vermin, according to Harris County Pollution Control. In certain cases, the agency says illegal dumping can also increase the risk of flooding when trash blocks storm drains and inlets.
Six council members have opted to respond directly to these risks, creating “hot teams” to address the issue. These teams set out across their districts multiple days a week in search of trash and clean up as much as they can before even more piles up.
As the city faces a projected $160 million shortfall in the next fiscal year — and most city departments are asked to reduce their budgets — these hot teams might prove to be a short-term solution to a long-term environmental problem. The Solid Waste Management Department, which is charged with curbing illegal dumping, lacks the human or financial resources to adequately tackle the problem, said Mark Wilfalk, who leads the department. With potential further cuts, this will only get more challenging.
“(Ideally) they would not have to appropriate those dollars — council district service funds — to some of those areas,” Wilfalk said. But the financial reality might necessitate it, he added.
Council members are divided over whether it is the best use of their district service funds.
Council Member Tarsha Jackson, who runs one of the hot teams, says it shouldn’t be the responsibility of council members to tackle an issue that falls within the purview of a city agency.
“The fact that we have to spend money out of our district service funds is disturbing,” said Jackson, who just had to expand her hot team to better address illegal dumping in her district. “I always tell my constituents that these are dollars that can go toward extra beautification projects and street projects, but instead we’re spending it to tackle illegal dumping.”
Other council members with hot teams — such as Martha Castex-Tatum — do not mind spending their money on the problem, saying their teams can often respond more quickly than Solid Waste ever could.
“With the staffing concerns at Solid Waste, it’s difficult when there is an accumulation of random debris for them to stop their routes to also address the random debris in the community,” Castex-Tatum said.
Persistent problem sparks ingenuity
Former Council Member Jerry Davis was the first member to create a team to address illegal dumping as he did so in District B shortly after he was elected in 2012.
He said that at the time Solid Waste was struggling with funding the same way it does today.
“I can’t blame Solid Waste,” Davis said. “They have policies and procedures, and one of the reasons why that trash will stay there for another month is because (they) have limited funds.”
Jackson, who now represents District B, kept the team in place when she was elected. When Castex-Tatum was elected to represent District K in 2018, she adopted her own model. Tiffany Thomas, Amy Peck and Carolyn EvansShabazz set up their hot teams in 2020.
The teams come with high price tags. Last year, Thomas spent more than $61,000 on her team, Castex-Tatum spent $151,608, Jackson spent $150,000, Peck spent $100,000 and Evans-Shabazz spent $175,000.
Despite the cost, Edward Pollard, who once shared a team with Thomas, is now seeking approval from Mayor John Whitmire to set up his own team in District J. New Council Members Mary Nan Huffman and Mario Castillo said they would be interested in having hot teams for their districts as well.
Though the hot teams operate somewhat differently, several council members have mechanisms in place for constituents who see instances of illegal dumping to call 311, or call or email the council office directly, and their staff will send the teams out to address the problem.
Other teams independently patrol daily for waste, even without any constituent complaints.
Take Castex-Tatum’s hot team, led by Melvin Hopkins, a 25-year veteran of the city’s Code Enforcement Department. Hopkins and his crew patrol the district five days a week in search of large items left by illegal dumpers.
The team in Castex-Tatum’s district also goes to great lengths to educate residents on the ramifications of illegal dumping and to put up cameras to catch perpetrators.
Because of staffing shortages at the Houston Police Department, Hopkins said he’ll help build illegal dumping cases.
Most days, Hopkins’ team in District K begins its rounds early. On a recent Tuesday, a team of four scanned the district with trained eyes and picked up a host of discarded items. On an isolated stretch called Parcel 3, team members grabbed a dresser and a child’s mattress that were left next to a sign that said: “No dumping. Violators will be prosecuted.”
As the team discovered a pile of black trash bags, Hopkins issued a warning.
“Make sure there’s no dogs in those bags,” Hopkins called out.
Sometimes, he said, people leave behind dead animals for them to find. And the team can’t do anything about it. They have to call in Solid Waste to take care of the issue, and Hopkins said that usually takes an additional day or so.
Solid Waste’s wins and losses
When Wilfalk took over Solid Waste in October 2021, he said, he inherited a department in shambles.
“My assessment is that this department, for some odd reason or another, has been significantly underfunded,” Wilfalk said. “And by that, I’m also going to say undervalued.”
The lack of resources has hindered its ability to provide even basic trash and recycling services, let alone secondary services such as curbing illegal dumping. Nearly 30,000 Houstonians called the city’s 311 line about missed trash pickup in 2023, making it the second most complained about issue last year.
The city used $17.8 million of American Rescue Plan dollars to bring in outside vendors to assist with illegal dumping in 2023.
But those funds are finite, and Solid Waste spokesperson Abel Fernandez told the Chronicle that less than 10% of the money is left.
This fiscal year, the department has spent more than $8.9 million to address heavy trash and illegal dumping, Fernandez said. He did not distinguish how much of the $8.9 million was allocated for heavy trash versus illegal dumping. But in a city of more than 2 million people, even several millions dollars might not be enough.
Still, Wilfalk said the department is making some progress.
A year and a half ago, it was servicing just under 6,000 requests through the city’s 311 line per year for illegal dumping and heavy trash cleanup. That number is now 14,000 per year, he said.
And what used to be a 45-day response time for reports of illegal dumping has dropped to three to five days, though some requests can sometimes take as many as 10 days, Wilfak said.
“There’s been a significant improvement,” he said. “But again, I want to consistently get to that three- to five-day mark.”
Murky solutions
Jackson contends that Solid Waste should be handling illegal dumping, but she said she would settle for the department at least helping to fund her hot teams. She said she’s already spending much of her discretionary fund on other services that city departments are failing to provide.
Wilfak said that while he would be interested in bringing the model in house, it all comes down to whether the department has the resources to fund it. Currently, he said, it doesn’t.
In an email to the Chronicle, Whitmire’s spokesperson Mary Benton wrote that the mayor was working with Wilfalk to draw up a comprehensive plan to address illegal dumping. When asked if Solid Waste might bring the hot team model into the department, Benton said, “Everything is under review.”
“SWMD needs help,” Benton wrote. “The mayor inherited a solid waste department that is underfunded and overworked in part because the previous administration kicked the can down the road he believes.”
But with the city facing a budget shortfall in the next year, it is far from clear where it might find the additional money for the department. Still, Whitmire said this month that he refuses to give up on the issue.
“I think we will have a very grown-up discussion about what we do to get additional resources,” he said.
In the meantime, Castex-Tatum and other council members hope to make continued use of the hot teams, which they say can swiftly address an illegal dumping problem before it gets bigger.
“If we get it early, before it becomes a big pile, we can mitigate the number of times we have to actually call Solid Waste to try to clean up big piles of illegal dumping,” Castex-Tatum said. “And I think that’s the genesis of actually having my team on the ground every day.”