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Salt Lake County cleaning up pond where thousands of tires were illegally dumped

Posted at 10:16 PM, Aug 15, 2018
and last updated 2018-08-16 00:16:57-04

SALT LAKE COUNTY, Utah -- The Salt Lake County Health Department is cleaning up a pond in the northwest side of the Salt Lake Valley where thousands of old tires have been dumped.

FOX 13 first reported about the mess last January, and the health department has asked that we don't give the address of the pond out of concern others would dump items there.

"We have a problem with illegal dumping throughout the county," Nicholas Rupp with the Salt Lake County Health Department said. "This is one area where it's an especially bad problem."

By Wednesday morning, crews had already removed 12 dump truck loads of illegally dumped tires.

The pond will be closely monitored now with cameras for violators.

The property is on the boundary of Salt Lake City and West Valley City, with some state and federal land too.

The cities, county and state will pitch in to pay for the clean up.

Bird watcher, Cynthia Sandberg, is glad to see the tires removed.

"My belief is if a man harms nature a man needs to fix nature and this is bad." she said.

The tires will be sorted.

Clean tires will be recycled at approved facilities and tires that are packed with mud will go to the landfill.