NATCHEZ &8212; The city plans to have the next round of illegal dumps cleaned up by the summer and also plans to apply for more state cleanup funds by a Saturday deadline.

City officials interviewed Wednesday said debris dumped in gullies creates standing water that breeds mosquitoes as well as being unsightly and degrading the morale of neighborhoods.

&8220;Neighborhood groups tell me this (dumping) is one of their top concerns,&8221; City Planner Andrew Smith said. As he talked, he was standing with other city employees at a West Stiers Lane site where police caught someone dumping limbs into a gully Wednesday morning.

The city and county have applied for and received several other such grants from the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality in recent years, cleaning up as many illegal dumps as they can.

Public works crews have already started cleaning up an illegal dump at the end of Cottage Farm Road. The city received a $15,000 DEQ grant last summer to clean up that site, but the work was halted by Hurricane Katrina cleanup. However, crews are now working again on the site.

&8220;And we hope to have enough money left over from that grant to clean up four more sites on West Stiers Lane,&8221; said Brett Brinegar, city grants coordinator. &8220;We&8217;ll

have all those done by the summer.&8221;

And Brinegar said she&8217;ll apply for a $25,000 grant by the Saturday deadline to clean up more sites in Ward 2. The city should receive word by mid-summer on whether it will receive that money and will then apply for more funds by the next DEQ deadline, Oct. 1.

Why people would even go to the trouble of dumping trash in the middle of neighborhoods leaves city officials scratching their heads.

&8220;I mean, there&8217;s a legal dump just five miles up the road,&8221; said Ronnie Ivey, operations director for public works, pointing in the direction of the county&8217;s Foster Mound dumpsite.

Smith said that if the city finds letters in the piles of illegal trash with someone&8217;s name on them, that person would be cited for dumping.

While the fine amount for illegal dumping wasn&8217;t available from municipal court Wednesday, Ward 2 Alderman James &8220;Rickey&8221; Gray said whatever it is isn&8217;t enough.

&8220;It should be $500 or $1,000, plus jail time added to that,&8221; Gray said. &8220;We&8217;re not going to tolerate this type of thing in the city of Natchez.&8221;