Outside a house at 14164 113th Ave., Davenport, you can see what many neighbors have described as an “eyesore” and a “health hazard.” It’s a pile of roughly 2,500 waste tires, stacked up as high as the roof of the house.
According to documents from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), two men named Tim Peters and David Mercado rent the house and leave the waste tires there. The documents also show this isn’t the first time Peters and his family have been involved in a situation like this. Tim’s brother, Billy Peters, kept roughly 16,000 waste tires at a home on Lincoln Avenue in Davenport in 2020, and then left roughly 30,000 tires at a warehouse in DeWitt in 2021.
“We have dealt with Tim in the past,” said Bert Noll, an environmental specialist for Iowa DNR. “We have also dealt with, to probably an even greater extent, one of his relatives, Billy Peters, if you look back.”
The DNR says the Peters brothers and Mercado do this for money. They get paid to pick up waste tires from tire shops and mechanics, charging a lower price than licensed tire re-cyclers.
“Then what their process has been so far is rent a property or a house, and then they kind of leave them there,” Noll said.
Under Iowa law, it is illegal to haul, keep and recycle solid waste without a license, and it’s illegal to store excessive amounts of solid waste in one location.
“You cannot accumulate more than 500 waste tire equivalents,” said Noll.
The DNR fined Tim Peters and Mercado $10,000 each and ordered them to remove the tires by early March. But now, the DNR can’t find the two men.
“The order requires them to get rid of the tires – you know, properly dispose of them,” Noll said. “That hasn’t been done, none of the fines have been paid, and I now cannot locate or communicate with either one of them.”
It’s left people living near the pile of tires frustrated, and concerned about mosquitoes possibly breeding there.
“It was very hard to sit out on your deck and enjoy the summer (last year) because the mosquitoes were exponentially more,” said one resident who has lived in the neighborhood for 30 years.
The Scott County Health Department says mosquitoes breeding in the tires is a legitimate health concern.
“Discarded tires make an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes that carry disease,” said Jackie Hall, an environmental health specialist with the Scott County Health Department.
Ultimately, the neighbors just want to see the tires gone.
“I’d like to see the tires removed, the shipping containers removed,” said the 30-year resident of the neighborhood.
We will continue to follow this story.
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