From Seattle writer and consultant Matt Rosenberg...: What A Dump

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What A Dump

May 03, 2004

National Forest Service lands near Pecos, New Mexico are being treated disgracefully, reports the Sante Fe New Mexican.

Rotting animal carcasses, hypodermic needles, dirty diapers, used condoms and rusting car skeletons are not things usually associated with nature, but all of these items can be found while taking a walk on National Forest Service land in the Pecos area.
'It is quite a problem,' said Pecos/Las Vegas Ranger District ranger Joe Redden. 'We get a lot of trash dumped on us.'

...Redden said the trash takes many forms, from abandoned cars to household trash to car batteries, solvents and appliances.

'I see our country, the United States, getting dirtier and dirtier every year,' Redden said. 'It doesn't matter where you are. In the last place I worked, I saw litter in the backlands, too. It's really disgraceful and I see the same thing here. People aren't taking the care to dispose of their trash.'

...'Education, education education,' said Fritz Rothdach, the owner of Pecos River Cabins, when asked what the thinks is needed to remedy the problem. 'The kids see it from their parents, so why would they do any different? It's like poor man's golf, its like a sport here. They love to hear the sound of glass shattering.'

It's not all bad news. Clean-up efforts in the area are on the rise, along with use of the county transfer station, which requires a small fee. Though readers say it's not just the NFS lands near Pecos getting trashed, but the town, too (see comments after story).

When visiting places such as the Lopez Island or Moclips in Washington State, or the town of Mt. Shasta in California, city slickers like me are reminded that door-to-door trash pick-up doesn't pencil out with lower population densities. People have to haul it themselves.

In the sticks, you pay one way or the other for your garbage: with time, plus either a fee or special tax assessment. Or like some in Pecos and elsewhere (including the "green" Northwest) you can dump on the fly; which costs everybody more in the end.

I give local Greenies a big hat tip for helping spread Clean Community standards in bucolic settings - where it can so easily go the other way, thanks to heedless individualists. Ya gotta love the legendary town dump on Lopez, where cast-off items of all sorts find new owners instead of space in a landfill or meadow.