Early Thursday, Bobcat tracks left zig-zag patterns in the muddy access road along the railroad line in Duck Hollow. Three-fourths of a mile from the entrance to this little nook of 20 houses along the Monongahela River, the small bulldozer stopped at the latest staging area in a seven-year campaign.
The battle against illegal dumping surged last fall, when more than 50 tons of waste were hauled away. Thursday, a tag team of three public works drivers went back and forth with the bulk of an estimated 35 dump truck loads. Each truck holds five tons.
Joe Divack, a volunteer for Allegheny CleanWays, the nonprofit that teamed with Public Works, said the tonnage for one day was record-breaking.
"This is the cleanup everybody says could never be finished but we are moving toward completion," he said. "Dumping at Duck Hollow is a very old Pittsburgh tradition."
The crews should complete the cleanup in three or four weeks. By then, he said, all the decades-old debris should be gone and it will be easier to keep up with removing new piles.
But a measure that may keep Duck Hollow free from abuse is CSX's agreement to install a gate at the entrance to the access road.
Railroad tracks separate the dump sites from about 20 homes that represent the Duck Hollow neighborhood, an isolated part of Swisshelm Park in the shadows of the Summerset at Frick Park housing development.
If there is ever a good day in February for unearthing tons of wet, muddy, filthy stuff that was once in people's houses and on construction sites, Thursday was it. Temperatures topped out at 64, which is four degrees from the record high set in 1883.
"The weather didn't inspire us" to schedule the cleanup, said Mr. Divack, of Squirrel Hill. "It's just time to move gigantic rubble piles. We have been working steadily here since the fall. I mean every weekend and some holidays and many days during the week."
Myrna Newman, program director of Allegheny CleanWays, said numerous organizations have turned attention to Duck Hollow since 2003, including Stash the Trash, the Nine Mile Run Watershed Association and volunteers in the annual River Sweep.
"On my to-do list is to add up everyone's tonnage," said Ms. Newman. "Enormous amounts of debris," from car and truck bodies that have been rusting for decades to a new pile just the other day, she said. "There's quite a bit of construction and demolition debris that is constantly dropped."
Crews have found refrigerators and furniture. A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Divack said, they loaded up 406 tires that public works drivers took to be recycled.
Mr. Divack, a retired behavioral therapist who was the Clean Pittsburgh Commission's 2010 Volunteer of the Year, is the crew chief of CleanWays' DumpBusters program. DumpBusters has eradicated 18 illegal dumps throughout the city.
When the last load is hauled away from Duck Hollow, Mr. Divack said, "we plan a big celebration event down here for all the work that's been done."
First Published: February 18, 2011, 10:00 a.m.
