Fayetteville launches effort to clean up Grove Street, Person Street bridges

For several weeks, people in Fayetteville have expressed concern about the amount of trash accumulating under the Person Street bridge.

The mountain of trash is headed for the Cape Fear River.

On Tuesday, the city employees were starting to remove the trash.

There's still a ton of debris underneath the Person Street bridge. The first part of this cleanup is finding a place to stay for the people who used to live here.

The tents are still here, but the people who used to call this place home under the Person Street bridge have been moved out.

The land under the bridge is owned by the North Carolina Department of Transportation and is responsible for keeping it clean. But city leaders in Fayetteville are responsible for clearing the tent cities that have sprung up beneath them.

"We've been working hard with our partner agencies," Fayetteville Mayor Mitch Colvin said. "With DSS and with some of the local community providers as well as the day resource center to make sure there was some transitional process that the people could ended up in a better situation."

One block over, under the Grove Street bridge, work has started to clean up the mess.

There is more than just trash underneath these bridges. There are dangerous materials like drug paraphernalia, including hypodermic needles. Cleaning up this mess requires patients and a hazmat team.

During the first round of cleaning under the Grove Street bridge, crews picked up three-and-a-half tons of debris.

"Three-and-a-half tons in a day and I would estimate the rest of it all hand because there's stuff that prevents erosion and stuff, the rock," said Cumberland County Maintenance Engineer Jason Dunigan. "They just can't pick that stuff up with the skid steer. They got to pick it up with hands."

Tons of debris is being removed from the Grove Street bridge. Once they finish here, they'll move down to the Person Street bridge.