Amador County – Amador County Environmental Health Department is seeking a grant to clean up an illegal dump site near Ione with as much as 800 cubic yards of solid waste and numerous tires.

Ione City Manager Kim Kerr submitted a letter of support for Environmental Health, which is seeking a “Farm and Ranch Cleanup Grant.” She said staff verified that “the property owner agreed with applying for the grant.” Kerr in a report to the Ione City Council for today’s meeting said she sent the “letter in support of the grant application.”

The City received a letter from the Amador County Environmental Health Department and Tony Maris, Amador County Registered Environmental Health Specialist, with the county “Solid Waste Local Enforcement Agency.” Maris said in the letter to the city that site contained “approximately 800 cubic yards of solid waste and many waste tires.”

Kerr sent a letter April 20th in support of the grant application to assist cleaning up the Brickyard Road Dump Site, located between Highway 124 and Brickyard Road, in rural Ione. The letter, in part, said the “years of dumping at this site” may encourage more dumping, and that “rainfall may be contributing to the movement of pollutants to the broad seasonal drainage in the area.”

The letter, a form letter sent by Maris, said the “accidental burning of this dump and waste tires would create a variety of public health nuisances.” It also noted that “there may be adverse public health impacts” to the junior high and elementary schools, located about a mile from the site. It also worried about property values in the area being “diminished by the existence of this threat to public health.”

Amador Environmental Health said the support letter would “bolster our grant application to the state of California – Cal Recycle.”

Story by Jim Reece This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.