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Tennessee: Officials tired of old tires

By: Lauren Gregory
(Contact)

Included in this article

Tisha Calabrese-Benton

Staff File Photo by Dan Henry--Hundreds of old tires lie piled up behind an East Lake residence.

A yardful of old tires that has beleaguered city officials for months has caught the attention of state environmental officials, who are now contemplating how best to take action against what they say is a serious community health hazard.

“Our department is in the process of determining the next step,” said Tisha Calabrese-Benton, spokeswoman for the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. “We usually have an escalating enforcement process where punishments can move up to civil penalties.”

State intervention has been deemed necessary because penalties at the municipal level have yet to inspire Alan Holt to remove all the tires he has collected at 4005 15th Ave. in East Lake, according to court records. Mr. Holt has been cited several times for violating the city’s litter code since May, most recently on Aug. 4 and then again on Aug. 21, records show.

Chattanooga Neighborhood Services Administrator Beverly Johnson did not return calls seeking comment on Mr. Holt’s case.

Deputy Administrator Anthony Sammons said Friday that he is unaware of any new developments in the case.

Mr. Sammons had said during an interview with the Times Free Press in July that his agency has been extremely concerned about what, at one point, were hundreds of tires stacked 5 feet high in Mr. Holt’s front and back yards.

“Water can be retained in those tires, and it can attract mosquitoes and cause public health problems,” Mr. Sammons said. “It’s one of the things we have to be mindful of.”

Authorities believe illegal dumps such as this one may begin when individuals accept money to haul away used tires but don’t uphold their end of the deal to bring them to an approved location, according to Mr. Sammons.

Randy Ridge, one of the agency’s chief codes enforcement inspectors, has fielded numerous complaints about Mr. Holt’s tires from neighbors and has cited the alleged offender to court several times, records show.

But Mr. Holt did not show up at scheduled court appearances on Aug. 21 or this past Thursday, Sept. 11, according to the record, and he still owes $134.25 for each of those violations.

In fact Mr. Holt — who isn’t listed in the telephone book and didn’t answer the door at the 15th Street residence Friday to comment — hasn’t shown up for any of his scheduled meetings with authorities, according to Ms. Calabrese-Benton.

A man identifying himself as a family member in July said cleanup was under way then, and he said Mr. Holt had been advised by an attorney not to comment on the issue any further.

But the tires are still there, according to neighbor Thomas Nelson, who said he has continued to complain about the problem on a weekly basis.

“It hasn’t gone away,” Mr. Nelson said. “You walk out the door, and you have 20,000 mosquitoes on you. I’m about to get fed up with it.”

On Friday, the piles of tires on the ground were gone, but three pickup trucks parked in front on the house were filled with tires. This is typical, according to Mr. Nelson, who said he sees Mr. Holt cart some of the tires away but then bring more back home.

TDEC first began investigating Mr. Holt’s case on July 1 and, after finding numerous tires dumped in the yard, sent him a notice asking for removal and disposal at a permitted facility by July 16, Ms. Calabrese-Benton said. Though the city landfill off Birchwood Pike hasn’t accepted tires since 1999, both the city’s refuse collection centers and the Hamilton County Transfer Station on Standifer Gap Road can take them.

No action had been taken by Mr. Holt as of Aug. 19, Ms. Calabrese-Benton said, so the state sent a second notice of violation and set a date for a meeting with him.

That meeting was scheduled for last Wednesday. When Mr. Holt did not appear, officers from both Chattanooga and Nashville began discussing various options from fines to state cleanup.

TDEC has cleaned up more than 70 illegal tire dumps statewide over the past decade, according to agency spokeswoman Meg Lockhart, including one over the past year on the Cumberland Mountain Trail in Chattanooga.

Mr. Nelson said he doubts officials will ever have the power to actually stop the problem.

“What happens whenever they do take them out, and then he just starts bringing them back?” he said.

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