Merrimack Valley

Tired of the tires

Volunteers remove 200 tires from illegal dump

By J.J. Huggins
jhuggins@eagletribune.com
Published: December 7, 2008

METHUEN — People have been using the vacant land at the end of Cambridge Street as a dumping site for years, especially for old tires.

About 25 people got together yesterday morning, fueled up on goodies from Dunkin' Donuts, and went to work removing some 200 tires, pieces of rusted metal, broken glass, a television and other junk.

The group featured a mix of nearby residents, city officials and people from around the region — including as far away as Cape Cod.

"It's been building up over 20 years," resident John Bruno said of the mess.

Bruno organized volunteers through geocaching.com. Geocaching is a treasure hunting game that uses global positioning systems and the Internet. "Caches" are hidden in public places, and players find and add and subtract from them. Many parents play the game with their children.

One of the things the game promotes is that players need to give back to the parks and communities they play in, so they hold cleanup events like yesterday's.

The event attracted players from various nooks and crannies of the region.

Bruno contacted Mayor William Manzi's office looking for a little help. He got in touch with the mayor's chief of staff, Matthew Kraunelis, who does geocaching with his children.

"I'll get a lot of calls saying, 'There's a bunch of tires,' or, 'There's a bunch of trash in this vacant lot, send the city down there, clean it up,'" Kraunelis said after helping at the lot. "And they really don't have any pride of ownership or sense that they'll come out and help themselves."

Bruno sent Kraunelis an e-mail saying he would provide volunteers to pick up the garbage, he just needed a dump truck and free use of the transfer station.

Kraunelis said the city was happy to oblige.

"That's a win for both of us," he said.

The Department of Public Works had three dump trucks haul the tires to the city's transfer station for free.

Cambridge Street is in a mostly residential area off Merrimack Street (Route 110). The dumping spot consists mainly of wetlands that people cannot build on.

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Photos

Carl Russo/Staff Photographer

Volunteers and Methuen DPW workers load up trucks with tires that had been illegally dumped at the end of Cambridge Street in Methuen. Residents of the neighborhood, tired of the mess of debris and tires, organized the cleanup effort.