District Attorney Raymond Tierney touts cameras for helping catch illegal dumpers in Suffolk County
MASTIC BEACH, N.Y. -- Authorities say a Long Island couple dumped construction debris on a dead end road in the heart of protected wetlands.
CBS2 spoke to people in Mastic Beach who are upset over the trashing of the marshland.
A woman named Julie and other dog walkers are incensed at what they see in their community -- their precious wetlands being used as a personal junkyard.
"It makes me very angry. They feel entitled that they can just dump here," Julie said.
Broken cinder block chunks of concrete were illegally dumped in protected marshland adjacent to the Great South Bay.
"We are setting up cameras in areas where this type of behavior is happening," Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond Tierney said.
Tierney says the cameras are paying off.
CBS2 was contacted by a homeowner victim in Shirley, where cameras revealed illegal dumping on his property, and cameras alerted Brookhaven town officials in March to another toxic dumping field in Mastic.
"Lo and behold, because people are selfish, here we are again today," Brookhaven Deputy Supervisor Daniel Panico said. "These two defendants are going to be the recipients of the charges of the heightened fines for dumping in the wetlands."
In the most recent case, a couple allegedly drove from Holbrook with a pickup truck and began dumping near shorebirds and protected waters that face south to Fire Island.
Local residents say when they confronted the couple, who are now charged with illegal dumping, they became hostile. A witness took photos of the wife making an obscene gesture.
Tierney said the couple drove off before emptying out several garbage cans filled to the brim with unknown substances.
"As state police officers, we see this from all the way out west, all the way to Montauk and Orient Point," Department of Environmental Conservation Police Capt. Thomas Gadomski said. "Any dead end road, where people think that they can get away with something without being seen, that's where they dump."
He said with the eyes of the public and cameras illegal dumpers will be caught, charged, prosecuted and fined for flagrant abuse of our delicate ecosystem.