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The City of Selma is looking to enter into an agreement with Dallas County to help eliminate illegal dumping sites across the city.

Officer John Creel, who is county environmental services director, approached the Selma City Council during a work session Thursday about the possibility of working together to eliminate five illegal dumping sites that he’s already identified.

Creel said the county acted in good faith by already cleaning up one site where they collected over 27 bags of garbage.

Creel said they county could apply for grants through the Alabama Department of Environmental Management to help them clean up some sites, especially those that would require a contractor to come in and haul off the trash.

Any sites that would be cleaned up would be monitored via video cameras to make sure it stays clean. The city and county would share costs of getting the grants.

“Yes, we monitor that,” Creel said. “They will put cameras in there because we are going to enforce the laws. So you need to be aware you’re going to stage one when it starts, if I catch them. I’m going to prosecute.”

The council asked Creel if this would open them up to citations by ADEM, but he said that’s not the purpose of ADEM.

“ADEM’s main goal is to help us get it cleaned up, but the EPA sees some of these sites that both in the county and the city, we will all have an issue,” Creel said.

Creel said they have pulled out more than 4,000 tires that have been illegally dumped across the county.

Council President Pro Tempore Clay Carmichael said the issue would have to be taken up at a regular meeting. Creel said it would also have to be approved by the Dallas County Commission.