A massive pile of trash behind Jim Wells County’s retention pond is just one example of illegal dumping that county faces. The new commissioner for Precinct 1 said this is a continuous issue that makes this area a public hazard.
Commissioner George Aguilar took office at the beginning of the year. With that, he has taken on the battle with trash in hopes of making his county neighborhoods a better place to live.
Rancho Alegre is on the west side of Alice. Driving through the streets, you can see some streets and vacant lots have debris from household trash and tires to home demolished projects.
“The people are good here, you know, but it's not the best (looking) neighborhood in town, but - you know - it's not a bad thing to be clean,” Aguilar said. "Illegal dumping is a problem there."
A fellow neighbor himself, he said it’s always been an issue, but he didn’t realize the severity. Three weeks ago, he found a massive pile behind the county’s retention pond.
Aguilar said the retention pond was supposed to have been fenced in to avoid such problems. However, due to budget shortfalls, the previous administration didn’t get the chance to do so. Now, residents have made roads from neighborhood streets to the retention pond to throw their trash instead of taking it to the landfill.
"We don't want this here. It needs to stop. We can prevent that by doing that - educating and enforcing,” he said.
The commissioner said illegal dumping tends to occur on property that’s out of sight and easily accessible.
"The mentality is they don't enforce anything I'm going to go a head and dump here. But that's one issue. The other issue is - they think it's okay,” Aguilar said.
Something Ramon Gonzalez agrees with. He has lived in the Rancho Alegre area for 20 years.
“If you look at the city - you have the same junk pipes we have here in town. And they have a code enforcement guy that should be giving tickets,” Gonzalez said. “The (Rancho Alegre) neighborhood has not changed. It’s still a poor neighborhood. So those are the issues we have to deal with and if you really care about the community that’s the approach I want to take.”
He said the community has always had a bad reputation, especially with the debris.
"The biggest issue is when you get dumpsters who aren't even from the community. Commercial contractors, roofers, or whoever it might be. They'll find a spot and go and push everything off the back of their truck real quick,” Gonzalez said.
He said that neighbors need to clean it up so commissioners can focus on other tasks like the streets. To help, he and a few other residents in the neighborhood just started a counter program to help combat this issue - Rancho Alegre Volunteer Network (RAVN).
"It's got to be a community effort. We all live here in the community. We all want to have a community that is clean and safe. Without the eye sores that have always been associated with Rancho Alegre,” Gonzalez said.
Commissioner Aguilar said we need to take pride in our neighborhoods. There is a landfill, but there are also businesses and RAVN that will assist people in discarding trash.
He reminds his neighbors that those caught dumping trash can face fines and even imprisonment.
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