BATON ROUGE - Illegal dumping is nothing new to East Baton Rouge Parish, but there's one spot on Florida Blvd. that at least one local would love to see cleaned up.

"This has been going on forever, really," local Craig Moates said. "This has always been a spot for people to dump things."

Moates owns property in the 17000 block of Florida Blvd. A pile of discarded furniture, tires, lumber, and other items are often the first thing people see as they enter the parish.

"We're trying really hard to clean up what we can and keep this area from falling to blight and such," Moates said. "It's hard to keep up with the way these dumpers have really intensified things."

He recently caught someone in the act trying to unload landscaping debris. Moates says he approached the person and asked him if it was his land. It wasn't.

While people continue to dump debris, Moates has put up a white makeshift cross to mark the old from the new. He has called the City-Parish, who told him the debris would be picked up in February.

The City-Parish says the illegal dumping remains a priority and the maintenance department will remove the debris as soon as it's able to, but recently, it's taken on various coronavirus-related tasks which have taken precedent.

The City-Parish Maintenance Department has been assisting with delivering sanitation supplies, PPE, and water to various public and non-profit agencies during the pandemic. The Maintenance Department has assisted in standing up the two COVID-19 MOHSEP testing sites and are currently hanging flags on the levee for Memorial Day. The additional duties have been taken on while the City-Parish says it continues to clean drainage, cut grass, and fill potholes.

The City-Parish currently has six blight cameras in use to catch people in-the-act of dumping illegally. It's hoping to collect pictures from those cameras soon.