By Malcolm Butler
Although there were plenty of topics discussed during Tuesday night’s monthly Lincoln Parish Police Jury meeting, none of them were dirtier than the trash.
During a time when campaigns and studies like “Keep Louisiana Beautiful” and “Love the Boot” are publicized throughout our state, the challenges of keeping Lincoln Parish clutter free have been overwhelming and many times impossible.
The topic of litter and landfill and dumpers and illegal dumping were at the forefront of both the Solid Waste and Recycling Committee meeting and the Economic Development and Planning Committee meeting prior to Tuesday night’s main affair.
And the thought process was unanimous amongst the 12 members of the Lincoln Parish Police Jury — something more has to be done. Although some jury members said they felt improvements had occurred over the past year, the issues around parish dumpsters and along roadsides is far from solved.
“I’ve noticed in the past year, there has been a great improvement as far as the dumpster sites with the clean up,” said jury member Milton Melton. “You see a lot of trash on the weekends, but by Monday or Tuesday the area is clean. It’s not as bad. Now some of them off the beaten path are kind of filthy.”
However, the trash that is outside of the dumpsters continues to be a problem.
“There are several dumpster sites where they are picking it up around them, but nothing is getting picked up in the woods,” said juror Dan Lord. “Stray dogs are dragging stuff everywhere. There was one lady that went and there was somebody in the dumpster. She didn’t know what to do and so she put her trash outside the dumpster. Next thing you know there is trash everywhere.”
The issue appears to be more a lack of public adherence to laws when it comes to dumpster sites.
“You have couches hanging out of them,” said juror Logan Hunt.
“We have a problem with dumpster diving,” said Melton. “Until we use some type of mechanism in place … as long as we are slapping their hand, nothing will change. What is going to have to happen is identify some of these people that are doing some of this illegal dumping and have them fined. When you go into their pocket, things will change.”
“Instead of fining them, make them have community service,’ said Lord. “Make them pick up trash. I guarantee if someone has to pick up trash for two days, that will slow them down.”
The parish landfill is currently running four compactor trucks — one more than in recent years — although officials said sometimes the lack of workers prevents all four of them from running on a daily basis. More than 71 tons of trash was picked up along road sides and around dumpsters in Lincoln Parish in 2023.
“We are running four which significantly helps,” said Hunt. “We are still running this grabber truck right behind them. We are still running the litter crew behind it. We are touching each one of these dump sites three times each round.”
Much of the conversation was centered around educating parish residents as well as increasing penalties for those who break the laws when it comes to dumpsters.
Currently, the parish policy doesn’t have a penalty for first offense while the second offense is a small fine. Tuesday night the talk was about significantly making penalties much harsher for those who are not abiding by the laws.
“There has to go to be some type of enforcement of what is happening,” said Solid Waste and Recycling Committee Chair TJ Cranford. “Whether it is people throwing it on the ground out by the dumpster, whether its blowing out of the back of trucks, whether its blowing out of the back of compactor trucks … wherever its coming from. If it’s something we can fix, then let’s fix that.
“Then from people just being sorry, there has to be some type of consequence. Whether its a big fine or whether its two or three days of community service. We can make all the rules we want, but we have to have some sort of enforcement behind it.”
Parish Administrator Courtney Hall said that residents can call the Lincoln Parish Landfill and arrange for them to come by and pick up larger trash items that should be taken to the landfill and not left by a dumpster.
“We actually offer a program where if you call the landfill, you can go out and put that couch or that refrigerator or that washer or dryer in the right of way at the end of your driveway … if you call us, we will come pick it up free of charge,” said Hall.
The number to the Lincoln Parish Landfill is 318-251-5159.
Hall pointed to the Keep Louisiana Beautiful study that was recently done as a way to
“Expenditures overwhelmingly focus on remediation and cleanup rather than prevention,” said Hall. “Local jurisdictions spend seven times more to remove litter and trash than from preventing it from being generated in the first place.
“So I think we are backwards a little bit. We are trying to remediate, remediate, and it’s not working. You can keep throwing more money and more people at it, but we need to focus on enforcement and education.”
Hall said that officials with the Keep Louisiana Beautiful study came to Lincoln Parish as part of their study and the results weren’t positive.
“We participated with this study. They came up and spot checked with their study, and they picked Highway 80,” said Hall. “It was the worst place they could have picked. That’s where that (ranking) came from. It was the second worst place that they saw in the state of Louisiana.”
Juror Joe Henderson said he felt that they should utilize the water works districts to help spread the word.
“We need to partner with the water works districts and see if we can put a letter in their bill letting them know about what they can do about getting trash picked up, but that same letter needs to if caught, we need to tell them about the fine,” said Henderson. “Although I think the (current) fine is weak. We have to get the word out. We need to fine them and add community service.
“People don’t know. It’s been going on so long. They think its okay to put their couch out there.”
Using direct mail was also suggested for spreading the word.
Lincoln Parish is one of only a handful of parishes that still provide dumpsters in the state of Louisiana with a total of 66 dumpsters located around the area.
Hall also said the Keep Louisiana Beautiful study cited Tangepahoa Parish as one of the best in the state when it comes to cleanliness.
“It takes a model from another parish — I think it’s Tangepahoa Parish — that has a really good program,” said Hall. “They have engaged with the JPs, the Justice of the Peaces, where they have litter court which is permitted by state law. You have to have JPs that are willing to spend the time and resources to do that, but criminal court and the drug court … they really don’t have time to do this. They are overwhelmed.”
Hall said years ago the Lincoln Parish Police Jury hired a private investigator to obtain video and photo evidence of illegal dumping.
“This guy came with (plenty) of photographs and data of people doing illegal dumping and littering,” said Hall. “We saw pictures and it was great (proof). But we could never get any cooperation to prosecute for a number of reasons. So we hit a road block and it went away.
“So taking something like this and trying to move it to the JPs where they can make some money for their operation and get it out of the clogged criminal justice system. It might be effective. We aren’t going to solve this problem today.”
The LPPJ authorized Hall to look into the possibility of utilizing the local justice of the peaces as well as increasing parish penalties (fines, community service hours) for those who are found guilty of illegal dumping.
