Despite months of complaints, a garbage pile on city-owned property near the Jones Falls remains
There it sits, easily visible from Falls Road, amid 311 complaints, environmental concerns and irate emails to top Scott administration officials – plus questions as to why Baltimore City trucks, as well as private haulers, are dumping there
Above: The trash pile on the side of Baltimore’s DOT maintenance yard at 2601 Falls Road – as it looked this past Thursday – has drawn complaints since last summer. (Fern Shen)
Last August, Baltimore leaders unveiled a plan to move a city trash facility to a floodplain beside the Jones Falls, which sparked a public outcry as environmentally reckless.
But for months an actual trash pile has existed on adjacent city-owned property, also close by the Jones Falls waterway, despite complaints.
This heap of refuse at the back of 2601 Falls Road, at the city Department of Transportation’s maintenance yard, is filled with old couches, mattresses, furniture, construction refuse, household garbage, road salt at one point and, well, no one’s sure what else.
Multiple 311 complaints to the city have been filed, going back to last summer – one resident told The Brew she alone made three of them – but the tickets have always been closed.
“It’s just unbelievable to me that the city has continued to allow this illegal dumping on its own property, even though people keep pointing it out to them,” said Dick Williams, of Friends of The Jones Falls, noting the even more starting fact that the city itself is doing some of the dumping.
“I don’t know why we’re not getting a satisfactory response,” said Alice Volpitta, of the environmental watchdog group Blue Water Baltimore, after checking out the pile and noting that the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) is responsible for enforcing illegal dumping laws.
“I do know that this is Mayor and City Council-owned property and so, you know, it probably doesn’t really make sense for DHCD – basically, the city – to fine itself,” she continued, in an interview with The Brew.
Volpitta said her concerns about the trash pile at the maintenance yard are the same as those behind her organization’s strong opposition to a trash transfer station at the Potts & Callahan site at 2801 Fall Road:
It may leach contaminants, polluting the Jones Falls which feeds into Baltimore’s harbor.
“Unfortunately, if they’re not completing an adequate investigation, then what we have is a big dump pile that could potentially be full of hazardous materials,” she said.
“And this circles back to the concerns that community members have been having about locating a trash transfer station down in the Jones Falls Valley.”
How the 2601 Falls Road trash pile looked on February 4. (Fern Shen)
“Environmental insolence”
The 311 reports weren’t the only citizen attempts to get action on the refuse pile.
Watching people he knew unable to get a response from the city, Williams wrote an email on January 23 to multiple city council members and high-level city officials, including Public Works Director Matthew Garbark and Deputy Director Alan Robinson.
“This trashing, including an open pile of road salt leaching after rainfall events into the Jones Falls, as well as the toxins in the mountain of trash behind, is unacceptable,” Williams wrote, calling the trash mound “unauthorized as per any regulatory oversight.”
“No number of 311 calls/online reports about this increasing mass of materials harmful to aquatic and marine life in the Jones Falls have been answered in actuality since August ’25, other than ‘case closed,’” Williams complained.
He said not a single official responded to his email.
“There’s a large mountain of uncontained trash delivered by the DPW and illegal dumpers on a DOT-owned site” – Dick Williams, Friends of the Jones Falls.
Last week, Williams slipped a mention of it into testimony before the Sisson Street Task Force, which continues to meet amid pressure from a private developer to move or shut down the trash and recycling facility parcel where he wants to build.
“There has been for at least one-half-a-year, on the adjacent Falls Road property a large mountain of uncontained trash delivered by the DPW and illegal dumpers on the DOT owned site,” Williams said, calling it “an actual grievance of environmental insolence.”
City truck dumping on the Baltimore DOT maintenance property at 2601 Falls Road, December 2025. BELOW: Close-ups of a city truck dumping there.
Unanswered Questions
The Brew raised the issues above in a February 6 email to Baltimore’s departments of Transportation, Public Works and Housing.
Our questions included Williams’ point – about city trucks as well as private haulers – seen off-loading material at the site.
We included residents’ accounts – and photographs – depicting these city and non-city vehicles dumping material onto the pile.
Why, we asked, has Baltimore for months been allowing – and participating in – what appeared to be illegal dumping? What about residents’ observation that the gate to the area is routinely left open or unlocked?
The answer, from DPW spokeswoman Mary Stewart, copied in full below, left those questions unanswered.
The Baltimore City Department of Public Works (DPW) will coordinate with the Department of Transportation (DOT) and the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) to remove the trash at 2601 Falls Road and check-in with Code Enforcement to ensure the illegal dumping does not continue. The Falls Road property is owned by DOT.
While City crews remain focused on snow and ice removal, DOT is planning to clear the illegal dumping at the Falls Road site as soon as conditions allow. Addressing this issue is a priority, and we are committed to ensuring the property is properly maintained and monitored going forward.”
This response was sent on February 6.
The dump pile is still there today, March 2.