Trash piled up at an illegal dumping site in D.C. for months without any action. Then, a neighbor called News4.
Gwendolyn Gregory said she watched for months as an abandoned trash dumpster overflowed with garbage on a short road that connects the North Capitol Street overpass between Catholic University and the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Northwest. Old mattresses and what appeared to be construction debris littered the ground by the dumpster.
“When I first saw it, I was like, ‘Oh my God.’ And when I was coming up the hill, I was like, ‘Oh my God. This is crazy.’ There was trash all around the dumpster. I mean, and my greatest concern was a rat infestation that could probably crawl over to the Soldiers’ Home,” she said.
Gregory, who works as a nurse nearby, said she called D.C.’s 311 line in early October in the hopes that a crew would clean up the site.
“Well, they sent me a reply email and said that they would be looking into it. And I never heard anything else from them. You know, maybe one email saying, ‘Thank you for bringing this to our attention.’ But as far as any action email, I never heard anything,’” she said.
Frustrated that the trash pile continued to grow, Gregory contacted News4 about the problem.
News4 reached out to Waste Management, the company that owns the dumpster, and D.C.’s Department of Public Works (DPW).
Within 48 hours, crews removed the dumpster and most of the trash.
“I’m just glad because I was really concerned about the rat infestation, especially going over to the Soldiers’ Home,” Gregory said. “That’s why I called the news station. That’s why I called.”
A spokesperson for Waste Management told News4 it’s still working to determine how the dumpster was abandoned there for so long.
DPW said its environmental crimes unit investigated the site and found sufficient identifying information in the trash to issue citations for illegal dumping to several people.
Crews are set to go back in the next few days to do a final sweep of the area, DPW said.
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