The City of Amarillo will be installing more cameras to stop illegal dumping

AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) - The effort continues to stop illegal dumping in Amarillo, as the city has received more cameras to watch for dumpers.

During a lunch with other city leaders, the public works department announced they have received five more cameras to develop the network for watching for dumpers.

“It has created more clean up opportunities for us, it has been eye opening for us,” said Donny Hooper, director of Public Works Department. “Putting this cameras out to get the repetitive violators caught.”

There are currently two operational cameras at one of the places considered a hot spot.

The first citation was issued back in April and since then, there have been 14 violations caught on camera.

“We’ve identified the five largest locations,” said Hooper. “Where we’ve received repetitive illegal dumping and that’s where we’ll be placing new cameras.”

There will be two cameras per hot spot. One with a wide angle and another one that can focus on license plates.

Since installing the cameras, Hooper says they’ve seen an increase in the time span between dumping.

“At the beginning it was kind of a daily thing,” said Hooper. “Funny story, we had someone that came out, dump something out and about two hours later they came back picked it up.”

Last year, the department picked up 5,600 illegal dumping work orders in alleys. This year, they are around 6,600.

“We don’t think that there has been an increase necessarily in the amount that’s out there,” said Hooper. “It’s the amount that’s being reported. People are starting to call it in. We’re starting to see our drivers report these items as they see them, which of course, makes our numbers go up.”

City manager Jared Miller says, because the dumping tends to focus around the dumpsters, replacing them through Curbside Cart Program has helped.

The new cameras should be installed in the next two weeks.

Remember the bulky item program is available and can pick up anything, except concrete and construction debris.

The number for that program is (806) 378-6813.

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