The list of what the homeless leave behind is what nightmares of public health and safety officials are made of — not to mention those of nearby neighbors and businesses.

Freon.

Gasoline.

Feces.

Tires.

And plenty of combustible materials.

Those items and more are what crews hired by the city started hauling away Tuesday from three parcels under an emergency abatement  to the west of Kaiser Hospital.

It is a clean-up process that may take today and Thursday to complete.

It is the third homeless encampment that the city has abated in recent months.

The current abatement site has been targeted since March 6 by city officials when they started issuing warning and citations to property owners.

“We try to work with property owners to give them every opportunity (to address the problem),” noted City Attorney Dave Nefouse.

On top of that, there are legal steps the city must take to comply with court rulings and state laws that are fairly time consuming.

An emergency abatement order was secured by the city Sunday morning after three fires — two in the past week — occurred close to adjacent properties that include a trucking firm and Kaiser Hospital.

The remnants of the most recent fire that melted part of the plastic slats on a parking lot fence at Kaiser Hospital on Sunday still had the freshly burned smell of charred wood and vegetation Tuesday afternoon.

The fire charred an area of perhaps 300 square feet that included two trees and numerous debris from pallets to chairs.

Nefouse pointed out obvious public safety and health issues the homeless encampment was poising.

Much of the area being abated backs up to a trucking company fronting Yosemite Avenue that had extensive tractor trailers and other equipment.

It is in an area where a number of years ago a wind-whipped brush fire burned through the dry weeds in vacant fields threatening nearby homes

And it is also upwind from Kaiser Hospital.

The seriousness of that was underscored Tuesday when crews started uncovering “buried” tires that apparently had been used to provide protection during the winter and respite from the summer heat above  underground areas evacuated presumably for the homeless to sleep and/or reside.

It is much like homeless “caves” minus the tires the city has come across in recent years where the earthen berm on approaches to the Cottage Avenue and Louise Avenue  overcrossings of Highway 99 had holes dug into them for the homeless to use as living quarters.

The tires added a serious public health dimension.

Tire fires are problematic to extinguish and can burn for days depending upon the quantity involved.

They also releasee toxic fumes much like the burning of the plastic slats in the fence at the Kaiser parking lot.

As such, fires in the area poised health risks to others including patients at the nearby Kaiser medical facility.

Manteca Police Tuesday morning turned away a crew that a property owner had obtained to clear up one parcel

They did not have a city business license nor did they have the proper equipment needed.

Due to the number of items involved that are considered hazardous materials, the abatement process requires those items to be separated out and disposed of in a specific fashion instead of being collected all together and dumped into a container.

If that had happened, such materials would not have been accepted at a transfer station or a landfill for burial.

Over the course of the abetment process for the three properties that started in March, eight citations were issued along with a cease and desist order.

On Tuesday after the city-hired crew departed for the day, homeless individuals were seen cutting through the two of three parcels being abated.

They worked their way through openings that had apparently been cut in adjoining fences to head toward an area where encampments had been previously  located on other parcels in ditches and land to the south of the city’s golf course.

The area is problematic because it is not visible from either Yosemite Avenue, Airport Way, or Center Street.

The city has approved plans for more than 500 apartments and 100 plus duplexes planned for land north of the future extension of Center Street at Airport Way.

Two of the developments would eliminate areas where the homeless keep trying to set up encampments or where they pitch tents before a complaint is made to the police who move hem out before they have established “residency” of sorts.

Such “residency” can trigger court-mandated protocols in order to force homeless to move on.

On property that is essentially fields or open space, a no trespass letter on file with the police department is critical to allow officers to legally pressure the homeless to move.

The city currently has 57 such letters on file that must be renewed every 12 months.

At any rate, future development would make all of the area more visible to the public which would make it more difficult for homeless encampments to take root.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com