MUSCATINE, Iowa — Customers are complaining, employees have claimed they aren’t getting paid and city officials in Muscatine are fed up with L&M Waste Systems.

City nuisance office Ken Rogers said he has tried everything to get the Rock Island, Ill.-based garbage collection company to clean up its act to no avail.

As of Wednesday the company owes the City $287,000 for unpaid tipping fees for dumping trash at the Muscatine Transfer Station. L&M has not been allowed to dump trash at the landfill since January due to unpaid bills.

And tonight the Muscatine City Council will hear the complaint on the latest issue and decide whether to assess L&M Waste with a $33,000 bill for cleaning up the company property at 5111 59th Ave W.

“You don’t get the full effect unless you’re down there smelling it,” Rogers said as he pulled out the file for L&M. It is his second-thickest complaint file next to a 30-year old file for the former Whiteway Hotel property, 1203 Hershey Ave., which had ongoing nuisance issues.

The property, owned by Jim Watts of J.L. Watts Co. of Rock Island, Ill, is being foreclosed upon in Muscatine County District Court by The National Bank of Moline, Ill., according to court records.

In March, the company was ordered to remove the trash from its property and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources reported that progress was being made. But the work did not get done so city officials took action to abate the nuisance as they  would for any offender in the City.

A huge jobRogers said a crew had to go to the L&M facility on June 27 to remove well over 100 trash bins that were overflowing and oozing liquid contaminants on to the ground. The bins had been there so long that trees were growing around and even through the bottom of some of the bins.

Rogers said that the condition of the L&M property was bad enough it  took multiple businesses to clean it up. The city had to hire six workers from Environmental Services Inc. of Muscatine to bring in garbage trucks to help workers with city trucks haul the bins to the landfill. There were also two wrecker services, two excavators and a DNR enforcement officer at the location. The tipping fee for the trash alone was $7,236 and 1,743 tons of tires and three hazardous-material barrels were removed from the property.

Rogers said the crews emptied the bins, cleaned trash from off the ground, excavated the land and filled three bins with contaminated dirt and then neatly lined up the bins by size.

Now he’s getting complaints from neighbors that L&M is dumping waste on the property again and there is nothing he can do about it. He said reasoning with L&M is a “big ol, waste of time.”

Bill Martin said he has worked for Jim Watts for 17 years.

“Jim Watts has never done me wrong,” said Martin, who oversees some of the business at L&M. He said it’s not true that employees haven’t been paid.

“We had been having computer problems and everybody’s paychecks were fine up until that time. There wasn’t a lot of pay periods affected,” Martin said.

“I don’t know who has been blowing smoke up somebody’s you-know-what, but they aren’t dumping loads there anymore,” Martin said. “We are taking it to the Upper Rock Island Landfill.”

Rogers disputed Martin’s claim. “Once I receive a complaint I respond to it and I went there since we cleaned it up and there was trash there,” Rogers said.

He fields complaints every day, mostly from residents in the county, who say L&M will not pick up their trash as scheduled, Rogers said. He does not deal with County issues, but said he also gets complaints from business owners in Muscatine who are having trouble with L&M regularly picking up trash.

Phone calls to Watts regarding the issues were not returned. Watts owns several companies. He has had legal issues with his businesses since the 1990s when he was fined by the Illinois Pollution Control Board for pollution problems at landfills he used to own. The state closed down those sites.

Because Watts’ businesses are private, there is not a government board that monitors his practices.

Rogers, as a last resort, issued L&M Waste a citation with a relief request to be issued by a judge ordering them to cease storing of garbage at the site. L&M pleaded not guilty and a trial for the issue has been set for Oct. 22.

“I wish they would just lock the doors and turn away from it and quit adding to the problem and wasting taxpayers’ money,” Rogers said.