A Portland man’s dream property has turned into a nightmare made out of rubber. Khanh Tran bought a 1.2-acre lot near Southeast 154th Avenue and Powell Boulevard in February, picturing a home where his newborn could someday run barefoot in the grass. A small tire pile was already there, and he figured he would clean it up himself, but when he returned in June with a contractor to start building, the pile had exploded into what he estimates at 50,000 to 75,000 tires.
Cleanup could cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars, money he says he does not have. Tran believes tire shops are hiring unlicensed haulers who promise to recycle the tires but dump them instead. He is not alone in dealing with the problem; Metro, the region’s waste agency, says illegal tire dumping has spiked, with over 15,000 tires cleaned up in the past year. But because Tran’s land is private, Metro cannot haul them away.
Source: KATU
