Thousands of tires create pollution issue

Thousands of tires have been placed in the woods at the end of Summers Lane in Reidsville, and now the Rockingham County Board of Commissioners has voted to pay $60,000 to have them removed.

The removal is set to begin in the next two weeks and will take four to six weeks to complete, according to Code Enforcement Officer Tinker Woods.

The tires were discovered in 2009 when complaints rose about the high mosquito population and suspicious activities in the area..

Thousands of tires lay above ground, underground and in a creek. The creek feeds into the Haw River, which supplies drinking water. However, Woods said at this point they’re not overly concerned the tires have polluted the drinking water because of how far away the tires are from the source the drinking water is pulled from.

The owner of the property, Jerry E. Billingsley, who lives out of state, was notified and issued violations. Shortly thereafter, Billingsley contacted contractors to come clean up the property.

“He made an effort to clean them up,” Woods said. “He just made a bad decision on who he chose to remove them.”

One contractor told Billingsley it was too much work to do. Billingsley hired a contractor to begin cleanup efforts. Illegal dumping charges will now be filed against the contractor, Thomas Caffada, who removed the tires, scraped the metal from them and then returned the tires to another location on the property, according to Woods.

While on the property, Woods said it was clear Caffada tried to cover the tires with vegetation found at the location. Caffada was able to earn a lot of money from the metal he scrapped, according to Woods, though the exact amount is still unknown.

 Tires were removed by Caffada from the back of the property, but now lay in the front where he returned them. These tires represent just a fraction of how many are on the property.

Walking on the surface of the ground leaves visitors to the land feeling as though they’re walking on a sponge. This is due to the large amounts of tires underground, according to Woods.

Woods said an entire car was pulled out from under the ground.

207 Summers Lane is the closest adjoining property to the tires, but the property is fairly new and the dumping occurred from the late 1940s to the early 1950s and in a heavily wooded area, so Woods believes it is unlikely contractors would have seen them.

The tires came from Gem Dandy’s Auto, which use to be located further up U.S. 29. The Billingsley family owned Gem Dandy and allowed dumping on the property. During Tuesday’s commissioners’ meeting it was said that cleaning up the property costs more than the property owner can afford and more than the land is worth. Billingsley inherited the land from family. 

Central Carolina Tire Recycling will begin removing the tires. The North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (NCDENR) said it would take the lead on cleanup. DENR is also expected to pick up the cost the county is fronting to remove the tires from an emergency tire cleanup fund, according to Woods.