BY COLE SINANIAN
cole@queensledger.com
OZONE PARK — A chorus of voices is calling on the New York City Council and State Legislature to tackle a plague of severe illegal dumping that has turned parts of Southern Fields park into a minefield of discarded construction debris.
The park, a major recreational hub for families that local children use for soccer practice, is sandwiched between the Belt Parkway and North Conduit Avenue and lined with tall trees, making it attractive to illegal dumpers who can easily unload their debris and leave without being detected by neighbors.
The problem has been ongoing for years but gotten worse in recent months, residents say, with City enforcement focusing primarily on issuing fines and summonses to illegal dumpers rather than preventative measures. In an August 24 letter addressed to New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, Ozone Park Residents Block Association President Sam Esposito called on State and City elected officials to devise a targeted enforcement campaign to punish perpetrators, and to install security infrastructure like lighting, fencing, signage and cameras to stop illegal dumping before it starts.
“The line of vision is so a truck can go over there, unload, and no one would see it,” Esposito said. “The closest house can’t see it because the trees are blocking it. So in essence, they get away with it, and no one can catch them.”
A particular spot on the north side of the park between the athletic fields and North Conduit Avenue has become a favorite for illegal dumpers for its relative seclusion, with new piles of carpeting, pallets, lumber, demolition material, metal beams, cardboard, plastic bags and other debris piling up most often on weekend evenings, Esposito said. Based on the nature of the debris, he said, the junk is likely coming from contractors that have been hired to remove it from private property — a service that can cost homeowners hundreds of dollars.
“It’s usually what we’re finding is, it’s a contractor that is doing a job and then they’re dumping it there, and they get away with it,” Esposito said.
“I think we need to strengthen our dumping laws,” added Pesach Osina, a Southeast Queens native and District 23 State Assembly Candidate, in an interview August 30. “This is a park that our children are using. There’s a soccer game today that’s full of children using the park, and to have contractor material there— a bag could open, there could be asbestos in there.”
Osina called on legislators to strengthen camping laws at the state level. A bill introduced last year by State Senator Joseph P. Addabbo Jr. that would empower local sanitation authorities to install surveillance cameras in public areas to combat illegal dumping passed in the senate, and is awaiting a hearing in the State Assembly. In 2018, the New York City Council passed a bill that more than doubled illegal dumping fines, which are now $4,000 for first-time offenders.
In March 2025, the NYC Parks Department bumped fines for illegal dumpers on City land to $5,000 for first-time offenders, with an additional $10,000 fine for each subsequent violation within a 12-month period.
“NYC Parks has removed debris from this area several times this summer,” wrote NYC Parks spokesperson Judd Faulkner in a statement. “Crews will remove the current debris as soon as possible.”
He continued: “Parks empties the trash cans at Southern Fields at least once daily throughout the park and more frequently at hotspots in the park, and we continuously monitor for litter outside of trash cans.”
Joshua Goodman, Deputy Commissioner for Public Affairs & Customer Experience with the NYC Department of Sanitation (DSNNY), said in a statement that the DSNY has been conducting midnight surveillance operations at Southern Fields and will continue to do so in the coming weeks, and that the department is evaluating possible nearby locations for additional security cameras.
“Instead of an old strategy where we’d just clean dumping locations over and over, we installed a network of around 300 cameras citywide, leading to a massive increase in the amount of times we catch dumpers,” Goodman wrote.
“Residents should feel confident that there are active efforts underway to stop dumpers from taking advantage of this area,” he continued.
