{"id":55464,"date":"2025-11-19T01:33:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-19T01:33:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/55464\/"},"modified":"2025-11-19T01:33:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-19T01:33:07","slug":"fort-worth-adds-solar-cameras-to-catch-illegal-dumpers-nbc-5-dallas-fort-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/55464\/","title":{"rendered":"Fort Worth adds solar cameras to catch illegal dumpers \u2013 NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>More cameras are coming to North Texas\u2014 specifically, Fort Worth\u2014 and they\u2019re headed to a spot you\u2019ve likely never seen, but one illegal dumpers know far too well.<\/p>\n<p>Tony Gutierrez, an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fortworthtexas.gov\/departments\/environmental-services\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">environmental investigator for the city<\/a>, walked along a partially paved road Tuesday, surrounded by thick woods with little to indicate it&#8217;s within Fort Worth city limits.<\/p>\n<p>Gutierrez says he\u2019s spent countless hours along Greenbelt Road cleaning up what others illegally leave behind.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cJust a lot of trash and debris,\u201d Gutierrez said. \u201cFurniture \u2014 we get it all here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And that cleanup comes at a cost. Over the past two years, taxpayers have spent about $85,000 on illegal dumping cleanup. That figure, Gutierrez noted, doesn\u2019t include the cost of investigations or prosecutions.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have to travel sometimes out of the city \u2014 to Arlington, Dallas, even \u2014 to try and track the violators down,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>To curb the problem and cut costs, the <a href=\"https:\/\/fortworthgov.legistar.com\/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=7731344&amp;GUID=1B8B6816-9365-4C65-8E4E-24135F41A02E\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fort Worth City Council approved the purchase of solar-powered<\/a> cameras. The cameras are designed for remote areas with no electricity access \u2014 like wooded dumping hotspots.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s the same type of security system often seen in retail parking lots across North Texas, now repurposed for a more secluded setting.<\/p>\n<p>Fort Worth will invest about $126,000 over two years to install the cameras where illegal dumping is most common.<\/p>\n<p>Gutierrez said a pilot project earlier this year showed promising results.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt affected people coming in here. They would see the cameras, they would hear the announcement and they would turn around and leave,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More cameras are coming to North Texas\u2014 specifically, Fort Worth\u2014 and they\u2019re headed to a spot you\u2019ve likely&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55465,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[30370,2327,116,118,117],"class_list":{"0":"post-55464","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fort-worth","8":"tag-caught-on-camera","9":"tag-environment","10":"tag-fort-worth","11":"tag-fort-worth-headlines","12":"tag-fort-worth-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55464"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55464\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}