DeKalb County

10,000 tires dumped near DeKalb County park

DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. — DeKalb County officials say they are faced with what could be days of work after finding the largest tire dump site they've come across this year.

Heaps of tires piled high were found down a small access road Friday behind Four Creek Mountain Park in DeKalb County.

A tip led police and code enforcement to the illegal dump site.

"Initially (we) thought this was under 5,000 tires, but right now we were able to get back a little further and looking more like 10,000," Lt. Lonzy Robertson with the DeKalb County Police Department told Channel 2's Steve Gehlbach.

“It’s just disgusting. It’s terrible. I mean people just don’t really care about nothing anymore,” homeowner Luca Maffei said.


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Some of the tires are in the back of Maffei’s yard.

Starting around 7:30 a.m. Friday, county workers and volunteers with Keep DeKalb Beautiful started the massive cleanup using a giant claw and a front-end loader to haul off the tires.

DeKalb police say they’ll try to find out who’s responsible for dumping all the tires. Investigators say whoever is responsible could face a felony charge.

“Those consequences could be up to $25,000 in fines and/or prison time,” Robertson said.

“Polluting up the neighborhood, got kids that live around here, just ridiculous. They got to stop this,” Maffei told Gehlbach.

Once all the tires are gone, concrete barriers will go up to block off the dump site. Then the community will paint them something other than concrete gray.

Authorities say the cleanup will likely last well into next week.