New DC law seeks to sue illegal dumpers for clean up costs [Video]

The threat of stiff criminal penalties and fines have not been enough, critics say.

WASHINGTON — DC’s City Council has passed a law that will give the city’s attorney general new powers to hold dumpers accountable because the threat of criminal charges has not been enough.

The threat of criminal prosecution, jail time, and neighbors with cameras trying to collect evidence has not been an effective deterrent, according to Dolly Davis, the President of Pope Branch Park Restoration Alliance.

Davis calls the illegal dumping that happens near the park and open space near Fairlawn Avenue Southeast in here neighborhood “environmental apartheid.”

The act gives DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb the power to sue illegal dumpers for:

damages,
civil penalties,
clean up costs
and attorney’s fees.

In testimony for the bill, The Attorney General’s office wrote: “Civil lawsuits are a critically important enforcement tool” that will help ensure dumpers “do not escape accountability where criminal prosecution may …

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