Construction debris solutions available

MOSES LAKE — There’s a lot of construction going on in the Basin right now, and sometimes it can get a little messy. A construction site generates a lot significant amount of trash, and when the wind picks up, sometimes it ends up in the neighbors’ yards. There’s a way to deal with that, said City of Moses Lake Building Inspector Will Mumma. 

“(People) could just walk by the job site and talk to the general (contractor) or the supervisor and (say) ‘Hey, look, I’m having an issue with some trash blowing onto my property’ or whatever the problem might be,” Mumma said. “I’m sure that they would be much more swift about getting it handled if it were a citizen from the community complaining than if it was myself.” 

Moses Lake Municipal Code 8.08.105 covers construction waste, but it’s not very detailed: “Construction and demolition waste may be removed by the person or his agent producing such waste or they may have the waste removed by the collector of refuse.” The collector of refuse is the company that contracts with the city for garbage pickup, in this case, Lakeside Disposal. 

“Ultimately, the responsibility of the cleanliness of the job site falls to the general contractor,” Mumma said. “Typically, their subcontractors are doing various work around the job site, and they leave the trash from shingle wrappers or insulation or whatever it may be. So if it gets to a point to where it's out of hand, blowing into the neighbor's yards (and) we're receiving complaints, then when we go on site to do an inspection. We will make note of it to the general contractor: ‘Hey, you need to clean up your job site and get your subs in line.’” 

That’s almost always sufficient to take care of the problem, Mumma said. If it doesn’t, then Code Enforcement gets involved. Code Enforcement is a part of the city’s Community Development Department, he explained. 

“Code enforcement would be out there looking for various things,” he said. “They'd be looking for the trash blowing all over the place, to make sure that everything with the Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan was in order, where there's nothing getting into the city's storm drains, contaminating the water. And if code enforcement goes out, they can do anything from give them a warning to write them a civil infraction, and if they were not to heed the infraction or warning, then for every day subsequent to that, it could be a new infraction.” 

Almost always, the general contractor will respond to a concern from a neighbor about construction debris, Mumma said.  

If a resident runs into an issue where the general contractor won’t take care of the mess, they can contact the city’s Code Enforcement department by calling the city at 509-764-3753 and asking to speak with a Code Enforcement Officer.  

If a city inspector happens to see that the refuse is blowing off the site, they can also address it with the contractor and almost always it’s dealt with right away, he said. 

“If we’re on site and we tell them to get it cleaned up, they’ll just clean it up … They’re pretty on top of it,” he said.