City property at an intersection of West Line Avenue and North Mann Street has long been used as a landfill and has remained an eyesore to the community for several years thanks to ongoing illegal dumping.
Two years ago, when the Sapulpa Times investigated the matter, the City said this parcel of land was being filled in for future road construction, linking Line Avenue to Lake Sahoma Road.
The landfill is adjacent to beautiful Hollier Park, baseball fields, and a cemetery, and is only a block away from the BTW Rec Center.
Nearby neighbors and other local residents have expressed their displeasure for some time about this unsightly collection of discarded detritus. As one person put it, “It is simply a disgrace.” A local Pastor stated that it was “embarrassing” to have funeral processions pass by the landfill.
One resident said that the dumping comes from all over, despite measures taken to reduce it. “It’s horrible, there’s people everywhere that will come and dump,” they said. “Now, they were supposed to have cameras up there, that was discussed years ago.”
Two years ago, Sapulpa Times spoke to former Ward 2 Sapulpa City Council member John Anderson about this continuing source of consternation. According to Anderson, he brought this issue up on behalf of his constituents to the City Manager and was told before he left the council that cameras would be installed.
The Sapulpa Herald reached out to Code Enforcement Officer Nick Erickson, who said, “I heard there was dumping there last week, so the Street Department was going there to clean it up, the last that I heard.”
The Sapulpa Herald then spoke to The City Inspector, Mark Stephens about the situation and asked if a better fence would remediate the problem. Presently there is only a low metal rail fence on the side facing Line St.
“The rail doesn’t stop people from dumping there, they are dumping in the right-of-way, on the side of the street. The rail is not stopping them, they are dumping on the grass. It is horrible, it is terrible, we have cleaned it up many times,” Stephens said.
Stephens pointed out that this was never a city dump, “Some people use the term landfill and think it is a large dump landfill, that is just for rock and dirt. People have been dumping out there ever since I have been here,” he said. He also said that the land just to the south of the landfill is privately owned and dumping is occurring along that piece of property. Last week a city truck and trailer was photographed dumping large cut-up sections of a tree onto a pile of dried-out brush.
“It’s unfortunate that so many people continue to utilize that spot to dump stuff,” Stephens said. Stephens said the illegally dumped items would be removed, but was not sure what could be done. “They continue to do it, it has been investigated multiple times,” he said.
The site is under further scrutiny due to its proximity to the new Booker T. Washington Recreation Center. Sapulpa City Council voted in May to a contract with Studio 45 Architects for professional services to provide civil site due diligence programming and concept design services for the historic Sapulpa building.
