Portland man buys 1.2 acres for his family’s dream home. Then he discovered up to 75,000 illegally dumped tires

A man in Portland thought he had finally found the property where his family could build their dream home in Southeast Portland. Instead, when he returned to the land months after buying it, he found something he never expected: a massive pile of discarded tires covering much of the property.

As per reports, Khanh Tran purchased the 1.2-acre property near Southeast 154th Avenue and Powell Boulevard in February. He planned to build a home close to his work and create a place where his newborn could grow up. But when he arrived with a contractor in June to begin preparing for construction, the property looked nothing like the fresh start he had imagined.

Instead, Tran says he found an estimated 50,000 to 75,000 illegally dumped tires.


“It was a nightmare when I saw it,” Tran told OPB in July this year. “It stressed me out so much. I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t sleep for the first few days of that.”

From a small cleanup to a mountain of tires

As per the report, when Tran brought the property in February he saw a small pile of tires. However, by June the pile was on an entirely different scale - there were upto 75,000 old tires. The sheer volume has turned the discovery into a potentially enormous financial problem, with cleanup costs possibly reaching hundreds of thousands of dollars. Tran says he does not have the money needed to pay for such a cleanup.

Tran believes the problem may be connected to how some tire shops dispose of their used tires. His theory is that some shops may hire unlicensed haulers who promise to recycle or properly dispose of the tires. Instead, according to Tran, some of those tires could end up being dumped illegally.

“The business owner of a tire shop, they’re not responsible for their tires,” Tran told OPB. “That’s why you have tires dumped everywhere.”

Determining who actually brought the tires onto Tran’s property, however, is part of the ongoing investigation.

Illegal tire dumping is becoming a bigger problem

Tran’s discovery also comes as Portland-area authorities deal with a broader problem involving illegally discarded tires.

Metro, the regional government agency responsible for waste management in the Portland area, says it has seen a sharp increase in illegal tire dumping. Stephanie Rawson, community stewardship manager for Metro’s Regional Illegal Dumping Patrol, told OPB that crews removed more than 15,000 tires from July through June.

The problem has sometimes been concentrated in individual locations.

“In May alone we cleaned up over 5,600 tires,” Rawson said. “Sometimes we had more than 1,200 tires dumped in one location.”

Metro cleared more than 8,600 illegal dumping sites during the past fiscal year and removed over 950 tons of waste from public areas.

But there is an important distinction in Tran’s case: his property is privately owned. That means Metro cannot simply arrive and remove the tires at public expense. Its direct tire-removal services are generally limited to public land, leaving Tran facing a cleanup problem that could cost a substantial amount of money.

Why thousands of tires are more than an eyesore

The tire pile is also an environmental concern. Discarded tires can create several problems when they are left in large quantities. According to Rawson, chemicals from tires can potentially leach into soil and eventually reach waterways. Large piles can also create fire risks and provide places where mosquitoes and rodents can thrive.

“Tires are made of chemicals, petrochemicals and other things,” Rawson told OPB. “They can leach chemicals into the ground and then into our waterways. They’re very flammable. They cause fire. They also become breeding grounds for rodents and mosquitoes.”

Metro does accept up to 15 tires per customer per day at its transfer stations and provides resources for people looking for legitimate disposal and recycling options. But that option does little to solve the scale of Tran’s problem.

A dream home still on the horizon

For now, Tran is left trying to navigate an investigation, a potentially enormous cleanup bill and plans for a home that suddenly seem much farther away. Yet he says he still intends to reclaim the property and eventually build the home he envisioned for his family.

“Anything can be fixed, anything can be beautiful, you just have to put some, you know, care into it,” Tran said.

His situation highlights an unusual consequence of illegal dumping: the person left with the waste may not be the person who created the problem. For Tran, what began as the purchase of a piece of land for his family has become a fight to figure out who put tens of thousands of tires there — and how they can be removed.