350 Tons of Evidence, Nary a Clue

Caltrans officials may never know the identity of the phantom dumper, but at last they have found out what to do with his dirt.

The dumper, striking under the cover of darkness, gradually deposited more than 350 tons of dirt on the median of the Glendale Freeway where it ends in Silver Lake. Weeds have sprouted in the dirt since the dumping stopped this spring.

On Wednesday, a contractor began a two-day project to haul the dirt several miles to the interchange of the Glendale and Ventura Freeways, where it will be used as backfill for an earthquake retrofit of a freeway column.

“I fought a hard battle and lost when they came and asked me if they could have that dirt,” joked Le Morgan, manager of the Los Angeles Metro Maintenance Region of Caltrans, who spent months searching for a taker.

The dirt began to appear in August, 1990, and grew over the months to about 10 feet high and hundreds of feet long, causing Morgan to worry about the freeway’s drainage system and the potential for a muddy flood.

California Highway Patrol officers did not catch the dumper, although they did apprehend people attempting to remove some of the dirt.

“I asked them, ‘If you are so efficient at finding the people who are coming to take it away, why can’t you catch the guys that’re dumping it?’ ” Morgan griped. He intends to erect a rail around the space to prevent midnight dumping in the future.