Local News

California Spending Millions Testing Highway Trash

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) ― Just about anybody who drives agrees it will cost billions to get California highways back in good shape.
But the state already spends tens of millions of your tax dollars each year to clean up the mess left behind on our roads...

It's a job that gets more expensive, and more disgusting every year.

A close look at the side of Sacramento highways can be a really eye opening experience...but looking too closely can be downright bad for your health.

We've all seen those washed up washers and trashed tv's along side of the road.

On a bad day, Caltrans says you can pretty much furnish an entire dump with what they pick up just in south Sacramento County.

"In a week's span, we probably have 20-tons go through this yard."

Durval Avila says a lot of it's just junk and trash.

He runs the Elk Grove Caltrans yard, and says his crews spend about half their time just cleaning up the mess along area highways.

And he says more and more often, it's not just litter.

"We have an actual hazardous materials contractor who comes in, and I think it could get pretty expensive."

It does.

California spends between 50 and 60-million dollars a year picking up stuff left along the highways, and washed into storm drains.

"They happen in bunches. Our experience is more often than not, they happen in 3's."

Caltrans doesn't break out the cost of cleaning up hazardous materials, but the contractor who handles those cleanups, R-A-H Environmental, estimates the average job costs the state several hundred to several thousand dollars.

"A lot of times the test will take anywhere from 10-minutes, to 45-minutes, per sample."

Durval Avila says his crews are finding more drug paraphenalia, and waste from methamphetamine production.

But they're also seeing an increase in something more basic.

"The urine bottles have become a problem."

They're called trucker bombs.

"Is it a form of terrorism or somethin'?"

It might depend on your definition of terrorism.

"I just don't want to be driving next to a truck and have 'em throw one of those bombs out the window or somethin'. That wouldn't be funny!"

It's not funny to the crews cleaning up the highway, either.

"It's a hazardous substance. You don't want to touch somebody's throw-away, and our guys are trained not to pick 'em up."

Even these guys working off their community service know all about trucker bombs.

And we had no problem finding plenty of them at off-ramps along I-5 in Sacramento County.

We found a lot of other things, too, including used diapers, human blood, and well...other stuff.

"For the last 3-years I been here, it's just constant."

Cleanup crews at local rest areas know all about the problem, too.

In fact, Caltrans says it moved a dumpster out of the truckers' area here at the Gold Run rest area after finding more than 80-gallons of human waste in the bottom.

And it's still not hard to see the issue.

"You see maybe 2, 3 bottles a day, at least. Sometimes bags."

"Most of the time, Caltrans says it has no choice but to treat all these personal deposits as hazardous materials, including the legally required cleanup. But we wanted to know, what's causing this growing failure of basic highway hygiene?"

Trucker Allen Smith says he'll stop at a rest area or truck stop when the time comes, but he understands why some truckers don't...economics.

"Well, I don't make any money unless the truck's rolling."

Most long-haul truckers are paid by the mile, not the hour, and every stop they make can eat into their 10-hour-a-day driving limit.

Is that really an excuse for this?

This guy pulled into the rest area, but then didn't get out of his truck, leaving the maintenance crew to clean up after him.

But Caltrans says the mess and expense has spread well beyond just truckers.

"I don't want to blame just the trucking companies, truckers, I should say. But people in general are just trying to save time and not take time out to go to the restroom."

Those so-called trucker bombs are a growing problem, but consider this: Caltrans spends several millions of dollars a year cleaning cigarette butts out of roadways and storm drains.

By the way, litter enforcement on our major highways falls to the C-H-P.

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