Two Men Charged With Illegal Dumping

Two men, including one from Panorama City, have been charged with illegal dumping for allegedly discarding a truckload of construction debris on city-owned property in Wilmington, a spokesman from the Los Angeles city attorney’s office said.

Artur Gevorgyan, 34, of Panorama City, and Hovhanes Vahanian, 40, of the Los Feliz area are charged with dumping waste matter on public property. They are scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 10.

Los Angeles Port Police saw Vahanian and Gevorgyan getting into a pickup truck and leaving a construction site at 1010 Southland Ave. on Sept. 30, Deputy City Atty. Brooke White said. The property is owned by the Los Angeles Harbor Department.

The dumping charge is classified as an infraction, which ranks below a misdemeanor. A conviction carries a fine of between $100 and $1,000, but no jail sentence.

While the city attorney’s Environmental Protection Unit usually handles hazardous waste cases, White, a member of the unit, said even nonhazardous dumping needs to be curtailed.

“It’s a severe problem in the city,” he said. “It costs the city $1 million a year to haul the stuff away.”

In particular, he added: “It’s a problem in the alleyways on the south end of town. You have a lot of construction workers and landscapers who don’t want to take the time to dispose of debris properly. So they just dump it.”