Beautify Jax: Historic Springfield home to illegal dumping site

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For many of us, it’s infuriating seeing another driver throwing an empty can or fast food wrapper out the window. The more careless people doing it, the more it piles up.

Action News Jax’s Dawn Lopez brings you this week’s Beautify Jax segment to get you results!

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A viewer recently submitted a picture to our Action News Jax gallery asking Lopez to take a look at a stretch of Walmart Street and Carmen Street in our historical Springfield. It shows what neighbors have to walk past every day: dumping.

Walnut and Carmen streets are tucked away in Jacksonville’s historic district. It’s wedged between streets, scattered with a mix of homes, churches, corner stores and industrial businesses.

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You won’t find much here except this: Broken glass, dirty diapers everywhere and even what appears to be clogged sewer drains.

“It’s ridiculous! It’s horrible every day. You could see couches, glassware … I walk my kids here … because you know, there’s a park right up the street. I have to walk them through. My son has had a tire pop,” Kiara Watson, who lives in the neighborhood, said.

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Watson told Lopez that she’s happy Beautify Jax is giving the area attention. She lives just a few streets over.

“Right now, like how the trash is, this isn’t even bad, but normally, it’s stacks and stacks of trash mattresses piled up, and it still looks like a mess,” Watson told Lopez. “I say [it takes] 2 to 3 months [to clean up.] I’ve come through and see the same thing for months. When they do come and pick up, it’s just the tires. That’s it.”

Lopez found some posts with the signs still attached. They say no dumping and no trespassing, but that’s exactly what we saw on the side of the road. But, Action News Jax looked beyond what was beyond the tall weeds.

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We took our drone up over the train tracks on Walnut Street and cracked the mystery of what the tall grass was hiding. It looks like a dumping ground up high with patches of it everywhere.

“That’s never been cut, and I’ve been here 3 years. We don’t know if there’s a body back there,” Watson said. “Treat us like other people … Orange Park, Oakleaf.”

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