By Mike Chambers
Correspondent
Dade County Commissioner Robert Goff is talking trash - and he doesn't like the sound, or sight, of it.
The first dump appeared on Lookout Creek Road at the foot of Lookout Mountain several months ago, Goff said. County workers left a "No Dumping" sign in place after hauling debris away.
A second dump then appeared less than 100 yards from the first. Goff found names and an address in the garbage, but it turned out the mess was from a house that had been foreclosed upon and the mail was to the people who'd lost their home and left, he said.
"In the process of the bank taking [the house] over, they had some work done to it, and whoever did the work, rather than take their work to the transfer station, they just found a nice out-of-the-way place to dump it," Goff said.
Most recently a third dump site appeared just below the second, this one in front of Lookout Creek Cemetery.
"Somebody went down in front of the cemetery and made another dump ... this time carpet and flooring material," Goff said. "Dumping at the gate of a cemetery, it's just sad."
The commissioner said he now is working with Dade County Magistrate Joel McCormick to warn potential dumpers that they plan to pass along the expense of cleaning up such illegal dumps.
"It's a costly thing when you have to send two or three people out with a backhoe and a dump truck," Goff said. "It doesn't run cheap."
McCormick said they will "issue a warrant and follow up [on any cases of dumping]." He said fines could reach up to $1,000.
"Of course, a lot of the time the people don't have it," Goff said, "but [the magistrate] still has the authority to say, well, if you don't have the money to pay the fine, you can do some hours of community service, maybe picking up trash off the county and city roads. That really makes the shoe fit."
Dade officials also hope the word will get out to the public.
"If someone will say, 'I saw this person and here is their tag number,' we'll make sure they are fined and try to get [this dumping] stopped," Goff said.
Mike Chambers is based in Rising Fawn, Ga. E-mail him at chambers@tvn.net