Dallas County’s offensive on illegal landfills — even those that may be found on private property — received another boost Monday, when the county renewed a contract with a company setting its sights on at least five locations in the county.

Thanks to a program through the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, the county signed another three-year contract with Regional Environmental Services Solutions and Recycling, that doesn’t cost the county anything and provides huge dividends.

“This is a program that is fully funded by the state and allows us to tackle illegal landfills that are on private property — ones that are created at no fault of the property owners,” Dallas County Probate Judge Kim Ballard said.

The program is funded by the state’s $1 per ton fee placed on landfills, providing a fund to disperse to counties throughout the state.

“Right now, there are about four or five locations that have worked their way to the top of the list that we are going to look at immediately,” said Dave Avant, with Regional Environmental Services and Recycling.

Two of the sites on the top of Ballard’s list — and those of county commissioners — is the site near Tipton-Durant Middle School, and a dump that has been created in a wetlands area near Dallas County Road 2.

“There are a few others, that I hope they will look at, including the one just over the [Edmund Pettus] Bridge in Selmont, near the Citgo gas station,” Ballard said. “That area is not on the list as of right now, but I hope Dave [Avant] will take a look at it and make a determination. It’s awful. There’s trash that stretches for nearly a half acre.”

Normally, the county does not have the authority to address suspected illegal landfills on private property, but this program — and working with a company such as Regional Environmental Solutions — gives the county the ability to help those landowners clear up dumps that were not their fault.