RALEIGH - The buzz of mosquitoes is not as loud and swatting at them less frequent because state prison inmates are helping to cleanup nuisance tire dumps across the state.

Inmates have worked at more than 40 sites in over 20 counties and have helped remove more than 500,000 nuisance tires, according to a June 1, 1996 report on the scrap tire cleanup program. Inmates helped remove tires from Anson, Camden, Chowan, Craven, Halifax, Harnett, Lee, New Hanover, Northampton, Onslow, Perquimans, Rutherford, Stokes, Surry, Washington and Yadkin counties.

The cleanup effort requires the inmates to pick up thousands of tires from nuisance dumps and stack the scrap on trucks for proper disposal.

"North Carolina inmates are working hard cleaning up unhealthy dumps," said Correction Secretary Franklin Freeman. "While the inmates pay for their crimes, communities get a better living environment."

Rutherford Correctional Center inmates picked up an estimated 40,000 tires from a ravine near Shelby in April. Pasquotank Correctional Institution inmates picked up an estimated 2,500 tires near Camden in March.

"We provide minimum custody inmates from the community work program for thess projects," said Boyd Bennett, Division of Prisons Geographic Command Manager. "Its a win-win situation. The inmates want to work. The prison has job assignments for the inmates. The communities get labor at no cost. And the Solid Waste Control Section gets the tire dumps cleaned up."

The Solid Waste Section of the N.C. Department of Environment Health and Natural Resources oversees the scrap tire disposal program to cleanup tire dumps, a breeding site for mosquitoes and an environmental problem. Since the program began in the fall of 1993, the Solid Waste Section and prisons worked together to offer inmate labor for the cleanup operations.

For more information on the Solid Waste Section's nuisance tire site cleanup program, call Mark Mintz at (919) 733-0692, ext. 269.