KOB.com - Man caught dumping goes on rampage
source: http://kob.com/article/stories/S331971.shtml?cat=10134
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- TheRealEdwin
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It's something most people would never dream of doing, going out to the mesa outside of Albuquerque and dumping trash everywhere, but Jeremy Jojola and the 4 Investigates team caught people doing just that.
The amount of garbage illegally dumped on the Pajarito Mesa is that of a junkyard that has no manager, no fence, and no limit.
The problem is so bad numerous people were caught on camera illegally dumping their trash in broad daylight.
A man in a red truck, loaded with tires, was caught throwing his trash.
From Chopper 4, men were seen dumping landscaping waste. They realized the chopper was watching, and covered their license plate and faces.
But one man took matters into his own hands after being caught dumping garbage bags into the desert.
And things got violent.
"You turn that camera on me, I'm gonna run both of you over right now," said the man dumping trash, later identified as Eric Beyer.
After being asked to answer questions, Eric Beyer rammed into the front of Eyewitness News 4's SUV.
"Hold on. The airbags may go off, so just be careful," Jojola told his photographer, Jeremy Fine, as they reversed away from Beyer's truck.
Beyer was later arrested and charged with five felonies.
After the incident, the 4 Investigates team regrouped and sat down with Bernalillo County officials to talk about the illegal dumping issue.
"When you've got something as a big as Pajarito Mesa, you have to do it in sections. We don't have the money to do all of it," said Solid Water Director Kim McKibben.
The county spends $50,000 yearly to clean up all of the garbage, but that is far from what it needs to clean up the mess.
"No matter how much money we had, we could spend every bit, because it continues to grow, the problem continues to grow. So I really think if we had a million, we could probably spend it," said McKibben.
The county thinks some of the people illegally living on Pajarito Mesa are doing some of the dumping because there's no garbage pickup there.
But the illegal dump sites are not just in the middle of nowhere; people are dumping trash almost in the backyards of some of the newest neighborhoods in Albuquerque.
The situation is driving neighbors crazy near 98th Street and Dennis Chavez.
"They try cleaning it up every once and a while, people come out here, dump and dump more, everyday it gets worse," said Efrain Nunez.
Money isn't the only setback to illegal dumping. Ground water can become contaminated due to the hazardous materials that ooze into the earth.
Many dumping sites contain chemicals, especially from dumped refrigerators, that seep into the ground.
The amount of garbage illegally dumped on the Pajarito Mesa is that of a junkyard that has no manager, no fence, and no limit.
The problem is so bad numerous people were caught on camera illegally dumping their trash in broad daylight.
A man in a red truck, loaded with tires, was caught throwing his trash.
From Chopper 4, men were seen dumping landscaping waste. They realized the chopper was watching, and covered their license plate and faces.
But one man took matters into his own hands after being caught dumping garbage bags into the desert.
And things got violent.
"You turn that camera on me, I'm gonna run both of you over right now," said the man dumping trash, later identified as Eric Beyer.
After being asked to answer questions, Eric Beyer rammed into the front of Eyewitness News 4's SUV.
"Hold on. The airbags may go off, so just be careful," Jojola told his photographer, Jeremy Fine, as they reversed away from Beyer's truck.
Beyer was later arrested and charged with five felonies.
After the incident, the 4 Investigates team regrouped and sat down with Bernalillo County officials to talk about the illegal dumping issue.
"When you've got something as a big as Pajarito Mesa, you have to do it in sections. We don't have the money to do all of it," said Solid Water Director Kim McKibben.
The county spends $50,000 yearly to clean up all of the garbage, but that is far from what it needs to clean up the mess.
"No matter how much money we had, we could spend every bit, because it continues to grow, the problem continues to grow. So I really think if we had a million, we could probably spend it," said McKibben.
The county thinks some of the people illegally living on Pajarito Mesa are doing some of the dumping because there's no garbage pickup there.
But the illegal dump sites are not just in the middle of nowhere; people are dumping trash almost in the backyards of some of the newest neighborhoods in Albuquerque.
The situation is driving neighbors crazy near 98th Street and Dennis Chavez.
"They try cleaning it up every once and a while, people come out here, dump and dump more, everyday it gets worse," said Efrain Nunez.
Money isn't the only setback to illegal dumping. Ground water can become contaminated due to the hazardous materials that ooze into the earth.
Many dumping sites contain chemicals, especially from dumped refrigerators, that seep into the ground.
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- groups:
- Green
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- tags:
- Green, Environment, Emmys, Illegal Dumping
