CAMDEN – Deep inside Camden County Police Department headquarters on Haddon Avenue, real-time video from a pole-mounted camera at a North Camden intersection near the Delaware River shows lush green grass and trees.
The area around Byron and North Fourth Streets has been a chronic illegal dumping site, police say. But no trash piles are visible from a wide view provided by the surveillance camera.
Video surveillance and enforcement – including the arrest of a Camden man at the spot in February – have cut deeply into people using the neighborhood as an ad hoc place to leave trash or other refuse, according to the police department. Missing around the intersection was any pile of trash or other evidence of illegal dumping.
“We’re watching you, and the community is watching you now,” Camden Mayor Victor Carstarphen said at a press conference on Monday commemorating the installation of 120 additional surveillance cameras around the city designed to fight illegal dumping and other crime. The police department now has a total of 420 cameras in public spaces, according to the department.
The additional cameras are coupled with automated license-plate readers and Artificial Intelligence that can help identify individuals in fighting crime, said police Lt. Gordon Harvey, who oversees both the electronic surveillance program and illegal dumping investigations.
A new law adopted by City Council in June that offers rewards for tips about illegal dumpers who are convicted also is expected to impact the problem. Tipsters get $500 for tips about standard dumping and $1,000 for tips involving hazardous waste.
Dumpers can be fined in court and their vehicles held for civil forfeiture.
U.S. Rep. Donald Norcross, who helped secure $500,000 in federal funding for new cameras, said part of the ongoing illegal dumping issue grows from dollars and cents. Building contractors come into the city to throw building waste onto the streets or lots so they do not have to pay to get rid of it, Norcross said.
“If you’re doing it correctly, you would engage a disposal firm,” he said.
Lt. Harvey said that, since January 23, dumping incidents have been investigated and 12 individuals have been charged. In one dumping case, more than 300 old tires were tossed in the city, he added.
City Council member Jannette Ramos, who introduced the dumping tip law, said it has become a health issue.
Rodents and insects are attracted to the illegal piles, and the waste may contain harmful substances, she said.
Ramos has been a vocal proponent of the city’s monthly bulk-waste collections, which started last September and are free.
“This is not about punishing people. It is about responsibility and holding individuals accountable,” Ramos said.
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