Detroit Has Nasty Potholes, And They’re Filled With Nasty Stuff

DETROIT, MI — The potholes in Detroit are legendary, ranking among the nation’s worst and costing the average driver more than $300 a year in repairs to their vehicles. Residents can hardly be blamed for their frustration, but Jonathan Pommerville, who calls himself Detroit’s “camera crusader,” says some people in his neighborhood in the area of Blackstone Street and Fenkell Avenue have gone too far.

With his video camera, he showed the problem: A pothole the size of a large dog was filled with trash so nasty that just looking at it makes that you want to bathe in disinfectant. And it’s one of the main things Pommerville crusades against in videos on YouTube and posts on social media.

“You can’t make this stuff up,” Pommerville said on camera. “No dumpin’ in the D.”

Detroit does has the fourth-worst potholes and roads in the country, according to TRIP, a national transportation research nonprofit group that crunches data from the Federal Highway Administration. A new study from AAA, the auto club, said pothole damage has cost U.S. drivers $15 billion in vehicles repairs over the past five years, or about $3 billion annually.

But still, Pommerville says, there’s no reason to use potholes as trash receptacles.

Pommerville isn’t sure how the trash got there, but figures one possibility is that “somebody was just driving down the road and tossed it in the hole,” he told WWJ/CBS Detroit. “It didn’t just fall in.”

Pommerville said the neighborhood has become a prime spot for illegal dumping, and he promised on Facebook that if he catches anyone doing it, he’s not only knocking on the door, but also will offer testimony in court.

Pommerville doesn’t understand why the neighborhood has become a dumping ground because the city offers not only curbside recycling but twice-monthly bulk pick-up.

“Either they’re ignorant of the fact you can dump for free at one of the drop-off locations if you’re registered to the city,” he told WWJ/CBS Detroit. “I really don’t understand what the deal is with the city.”

And he calls people out by name on his social media posts, and says that if he finds trash with an individual’s name on it, he’ll mail it back to them. He’s also planning to patrol the streets of his neighborhood with a drone equipped with a video camera.

“This is a community, unlike the perception from the outside, this is a community,” Pommerville told WWJ/CBS Detroit. “Here we are, we can’t get any lower and they still trash on us. A thousand volunteers come in here and two days later the trash is back.”

Screenshot via YouTube