“We’re not talking about a couple dozen tires. We have hauled, we have taken back over 30 tons of tires this year. I can’t even tell you how much, but it is well over $10,000 worth of tires. So I’m not sure why the uptick this year, but it seems worse than any year I’ve seen the tires out there, and we’re all paying for it,” he said. “Every one of us that pays taxes on any wage, if you buy gas anywhere, you’re helping us cover the tire cost.”

If a driver who isn’t operating a Marshall County Highway Department vehicle has a load of tires in the back, he added, there’s a good chance they’ll end up in the right-of-way. In response to a question from Supervisor Carol Hibbs about where it was happening most, Geilenfeldt said it was primarily the northeast quadrant, which is sparsely populated and only includes a single unincorporated community, Green Mountain. At one site in Dunbar, however, which is between Le Grand and Gilman, over 200 tires were located.

Board Chairman Jarret Heil wondered if the counties that touch Marshall County’s northeast border, Grundy and Tama, were having the same problems, and Sheriff Joel Phillips then stepped forward and said that didn’t seem to be the case. Individuals have been caught illegally dumping items in the county from as far away as Des Moines, the sheriff added, and he said the incidents this year have largely been random as the activity hasn’t followed a specific pattern or happened at a certain time of day.

In response to another question from Supervisor Steve Salasek, Phillips said the act itself was a simple misdemeanor, and the offenders can incur fines after a successful conviction. Other factors driving the increase in garbage dumps in the county, the sheriff said, include spring cleanup efforts and tenants being evicted by landlords, who in turn hire third party contractors — some of whom prefer to skirt the cost of taking items to the landfill — to clean up the properties.

In addition to tires, Phillips said items like household appliances and electronics have also been illegally dumped in ditches around the county.

If the illegally disposed items can be traced to a specific individual or family, Phillips said his office will generally provide the option for the offenders to pick them up before more punitive measures are considered.

“There’s a lot this year, especially with the tires. We’ve had anywhere from electronic equipment (to) furniture,” he said. “So we’re looking for those vehicles that are containing anything leaving the city of Marshalltown… We’ve had some pretty good help from our rural citizens on ‘Hey, this table doesn’t belong here. Find another place for it.'”

Heil encouraged anyone who witnesses suspicious activity to call the sheriff’s office at (641) 754-6380. After the meeting, Phillips shared that the MCSO has received 16 reports of items discarded in rural ditches and roadways so far in 2024, including construction waste, electronic equipment, household garbage, yard waste, clothing, appliances, furniture and tires.

“March and April are the highest months with reports, and this may be related to tenant evictions (and) increased nuisance code enforcement in Marshalltown, including reduced hours of the Marshalltown compost facility as 15 out of the 16 reported dump sites are within a few miles of Marshalltown city limits,” Phillips said.

Evictions are most frequent in the springtime, he added, and the Sheriff’s Office becomes involved in the eviction process through a variety of civil actions after courts have provided a ruling.

As he had mentioned during the meeting, if a tenant is removed from a property through a writ of possession, the property often has large amounts of garbage or unwanted items left behind by the tenant. In some instances, cleanup of the property is subcontracted to a third party, and it can end up being dumped in rural areas to avoid landfill fees.

“Property owners that use third party contractors for cleanup can protect themselves by asking for landfill receipts to avoid discarded waste being tracked back to their property and potentially their responsibility for removal and criminal charges,” Phillips said. “If a landowner discovers an area where waste is being dumped or suspicious vehicles that contain items of waste, please call the Marshall County Communication Center. All reports are investigated by deputies, but many times there are challenges associated with these investigations and cleanup. Many times, these occur in remote, less traveled areas.”

Phillips spoke positively of improvements with security cameras and the MPD’s new Flock cameras, which he said can be valuable tools in identifying offenders despite the time and resources the investigations require.

Once a dump site is located, the Secondary Roads Department is contacted to remove the discarded items. Depending on availability and priority, the removal can take several days due to having to reassign employees from one task to another.

“We encourage residents to use the Marshall County Landfill, the Marshalltown Compost Facility or community clean up programs and events to discard items properly,” Phillips said.

Geilenfeldt added that the Secondary Roads department has paid $4,587 in tire disposal fees for this year along with $16,045 in payroll expenditures for the pickup of garbage and tires, which doesn’t account for a recent dump near Dunbar that will amount to several tons of tire disposal.

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Contact Robert Maharry at 641-753-6611 ext. 255 or

rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.