Someone illegally dumped 4,000 tires into Tacony Creek Park. It will take a human chain of 100 to clear.

The dumpers were methodical.

They severed the lock on a SEPTA gate and swapped it with one of their own for easy, repeated entry.

Over consecutive nights, or weeks, they maneuvered in a vehicle, hurling thousands of tires into a ravine at Tacony Creek Park — and transformed part of the widely used park into a clandestine dump.

Tire dumping has plagued Philly for years. In 2023, a dredging operation on the Schuylkill was abandoned after a contractor yanked 3,000 tires from the river and refused to continue. Each spring, volunteer park cleanouts often reveal tens or hundreds of tires.

But the scale of this dump is shocking to people familiar with dumping. As the trail of tires spills down, layers deep, and stretching at least 100 feet long off Newtown and Adams Avenues, it comes within feet of the creek. Estimates of the number of tires run to 4,000. The exact amount is difficult to pinpoint because they overlap and the pile is many tires deep in some places.

Now comes the big job: Getting them out with a human chain of at least 100 volunteers because there is no easy access. The volunteers, along with city workers, will have to haul them out on sleds.

“This is by far the largest I’ve seen in my 20 years of working in the public space and city government,” said Justin DiBerardinis, executive director of the nonprofit Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership (TTF). “And talking to folks who’ve spent their whole careers in [Philly] Parks and Rec, this the biggest pile of tires in the Philadelphia park system that anyone can remember.”

A Parks and Recreation worker and TTF volunteer first discovered the massive tire dump around Thanksgiving. But the scale demanded a strategic removal plan. The tires became waterlogged as winter took hold. They became entombed in layers of ice and snow, further complicating their extraction until spring.

The source of the tires remains a mystery. Officials suspect they were abandoned by a contractor hired to haul tires from auto and tire shops, who opted to dump them illegally rather than pay steep tipping fees at a proper recycling or disposal facility.

Mayor Cherelle L. Parker’s administration coordinated on a plan with multiple agencies, TTF, and United by Blue, a Philly-based sustainable clothing retailer that organizes cleanups around the country.

Natalie Walker, sustainability director for Parks and Recreation, said the cleanup is scheduled for 9 a.m. on April 5 and will require both volunteers and city workers because of the scale of work required. It will involve the Philadelphia Water Department, the sanitation department, the Office of Clean and Green Initiatives, the streets department, and SEPTA. However, workers began removing tires last week because there were so many.

Walker said the tires will be disposed of by a contracted hauler. The city will close off Adams Avenue as volunteers fan out along the park.

Tacony Creek Park spans 300 acres through a densely populated part of the city and is managed by Philadelphia Parks and Recreation. It runs through the Olney, Lawncrest, Feltonville, Juniata Park, and Frankford neighborhoods. It has woods and meadows that provide habitat for more than 100 species of birds and other wildlife.

A 3.2-mile paved trail runs along the creek, part of The Circuit Trails regional trail network.

The portion of the park along Adams Avenue has been vulnerable to dumping for years.

“It’s a place that is commonly hit with illegal tire dumping, and our teams work really hard to try to clean those materials out,” Walker said. “However, this dump is one of the largest ones we’ve ever seen in the park. We estimated there are thousands of tires so it’s just a lot for our staff to do on our own. So we’re organizing a cleanup. It’s a hugely collaborative effort.”

Walker called the city’s parks a “hot bed” for illegal dumpers.

“These are beautiful protected spaces that don’t have a lot of car traffic coming in,” Walker said. “It’s an easy place for folks to sneak in and dump.”

“Illegal dumping is not just an eyesore in the city of Philadelphia, it is a direct threat to public health and neighborhood stability and environmental sustainability,” Councilmember Anthony Phillips testified during a March Committee on Streets and Services hearing. “One of the most impacted areas in the 9th District is Newtown Avenue, which is also known, better known as Snake Road in the Lawncrest neighborhood.”

Phillips said the area sees “persistent, large scale illegal dumping” that draws complaints by neighbors. Volunteers are continually called on to clean up areas along the road, he said.

Phillips said the city spends $48 million a year on cleanups. But most of that goes to actual removal, instead of prevention.

“Enough is enough,” he said.

But catching dumpers is a trying task, officials say.

Carlton Williams, director of the Office of Clean and Green Initiatives, said the city currently has 300 video cameras installed to try to catch dumpers.

“This is in addition to the work that we’ve done with the police department,” Williams testified at the hearing. “We will expand the number of cameras by 100 this year to other locations and hold illegal dumpers accountable.”

Some of the cameras being installed along trails will have night vision.

Over the past two years, Parks and Recreation has issued fines totaling more than a million dollars against dumpers. However, it’s unclear how much they end up paying after court hearings.

Bailey Weinhold, director of impact and sustainability for United by Blue, said the company has a database of two million volunteers across the U.S.

She’s already drawn on those with Philly-area connections to assist with the cleanout.

“We have a large network of folks who are interested in helping remove debris from their communities,” Weinhold said. “This will be a really cool event to witness.”

This story was corrected to state that it was Councilmember Anthony Phillips who spoke during a Committee on Streets and Services hearing.