I noticed that the gardeners who take all the kids’ lawn-mowing jobs away and really don’t report their income should be banned from using blowers to clean up their mess of leaves, trimmings and small minute garbage being washed down the city drains, eventually causing sewage backup and city crews overtime when it backs up during heavy rains. I am considering a proposed city ordinance on them being accountable for their taxes, sweeping up their mess. Can you please look into this? They need to pay a user fee for blowing dust all around the city neighborhoods. They are probably making a killing not reporting all the lawns they cut. Not all of them are like that but most of them are. Can you help us on this proposal? — Citizen, Calexico
The letter writer would probably be better served taking this ordinance idea to a city manager or a city council for assistance in drafting it. There are multiple issues contained in this question alone, some of which would cross jurisdictions and some of which would contradict existing law.
There is the air pollution part of the question, the water pollution component and a separate issue about working under the table. Each one has its different jurisdiction — county, state and federal, to some extent, for air; city and state for water; and state and federal for income taxes.
On the guys using blowers, we spoke with Imperial County Air Pollution Control District Officer Brad Poiriez.
There is no county ordinance pertaining to the exhaust coming from gas-powered motors on the blowers because the county is only moderate attainment for ozone levels.
But there are regulations in place for the fugitive dust that might be released into the air from using them. He said when used for their intended purpose, that is, leaves and large pieces of vegetation, it’s fine. But when dust is being blown, that is unlawful.
Poiriez said even crews doing work around county buildings have been stopped and told to not blow dust as they are violating Rule 401 of the county code dealing with dust opacity, or the cloudiness caused by dust.
Poiriez said educating the people doing the violating is often enough to get it resolved.
As for clipping and dirt down storm drains, that is a pretty common rule that it should not be done. We spoke with city wastewater plant supervisor Randy Hines, who said if it’s not water, it doesn’t belong in storm drains, and there is an ordinance in place saying that.
However, enforcement is another issue, he said. It would be impossible to catch someone sweeping something down the storm drains unless it was reported. He said there is real-time software being worked out by the city that would send complaints of this nature directly to supervisors and managers for faster response.
When it comes to reporting those working off the grid, as the state refers to it, in the “underground economy,” that can be reported to the Payroll Tax Fraud division of the state Department of Employment Development by calling toll-free at 800-528-1783. EDD has an Underground Economy Taskforce dedicated to dealing with all of this.
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