I am distressed by the amount of trash being discarded along the roads of West County, which appears to have increased since the Harrison Grade dump was closed.
I understand that the activities of the County’s roads department (the “Transportation and Public Works Department”) include “trash and litter pickup.” As a West County resident, I’d like to speak with a knowledgeable person in that department about publicizing what residents can do when they see trash that has been thrown on the roadside. Can anyone provide me with an introduction to a member of that Department? The County website lists the following employees by name: Director: Phillip Demery; Deputy Director: David Robertson; Deputy Director: Susan Klassen.
Of course, I’m also interested in how to discourage people from discarding trash inappropriately in the first place. I welcome any suggestions on that score as well.
Bob Burke
Tars
12-05-2007, 06:31 PM
Suggestion: put not your trust in bureaucrats, as they will not solve your problems, only dissemble, delay, obfuscate, and cause you to wail and gnash your teeth.
I don't think it has too much to do with any single dump location closing. Our property is NE of Sebastopol, towards Santa Rosa. We get crap dumped on our driveway & property next to the roadside all the time - everything from yard waste & rubbish, to old appliances, wrecks, and even meth lab waste chemicals.
While I expect meth "chemists" dispose of their wastes here mainly because it gets incriminating materials out of their hands ASAP, I assume other low-lifes just dump their crap here, because they're too lazy or stupid to drive the extra ten miles to do it at the dump. Oh, and I guess they just want to skip out on paying the basic dump fee. They make me hope that karma is really a law of the universe.
https://www.rpriddle.com/webpix/anim_lightningbolt.gifNote to scumbag, roadside garbage dumpers & meth lab operators: for general security reasons we've added cameras to our front gate entry. If you dump your crap on our driveway, you'd best have your license plates covered. Jerks.
amalia
12-07-2007, 05:45 AM
Trash in the road and other public places, unfortunately is a fact of life. Does anyone occasionally pick up trash they see along the road, plastic bags floating around, Starbucks/Juice Shack cups left in potted plants, candy wrappers? It's also the "ordinary" person who leaves trash, simple as that.
Just pick it up, tell others to do the same, and if you see someone leaving trash....ask them kindly to pick it up.
Amalia
Shekeyna
12-08-2007, 04:10 AM
Trash in the road and other public places, unfortunately is a fact of life. Does anyone occasionally pick up trash they see along the road, plastic bags floating around, Starbucks/Juice Shack cups left in potted plants, candy wrappers? It's also the "ordinary" person who leaves trash, simple as that.
Just pick it up, tell others to do the same, and if you see someone leaving trash....ask them kindly to pick it up.
Amalia
Bravo Amalia!
I agree we need to pick up after ourselves and each other.
I often think; if not me then who, is going to pick it up?
I have an issue with cigarette butts; however, and think people should pick up ther own butts; literally and metaphorically. :idea:
Respectfully,
Shekeyna
Barrie
12-08-2007, 10:04 PM
Last summer I got a flat tire on my bike and ended up walking home, about an hour and half, picking up trash along the way. I found a bag after a little way so I was able to collect quite a bit of trash. It made a small disaster into a meaningful adventure. Then as the weeks went by I saw litter piling up along the same roads. Most of the litter comes from food take out, much of it fast foods like Burger King, etc. I think that they should pay a litter tax.
Barrie
nicofrog
12-10-2007, 01:47 AM
AH YES, THE LOVELY ROAD TRASH IN PARADISE
Just another symptom, like kids with guns in schools,drivebyes, and
toxics in our everything!
I was thinking a sign for green valley road that said:goodjob:
TRASH ALONG THIS ROAD GENEROUSLY DONATED BY TWEAKERS WHO'S MOM'S DON'T PICK UP AFTER THEM ANYMORE
BUT I REALLY DON'T KNOW IF THAT WOULD HELP, they also steal things like mailboxes,Mail, shovels and wheelbarrows,and practically anything the community gardens put out side accept, fortunately; vegetables I imagine those folks eat mostly canned stuff. Also,every week,we have about 3 or 4 people who drive bye at around 70 miles an hour,not quite double the speed limit, but getting there,always headed towards the river.
I have inspected the trash piles carefully, there are many booze bottles and Gurneville Safeway receipts.I'm hoping they will slip up and put the wrong evidence in there. a solar powered ,motion activated video surveilance camera mounted in a tree would be a better use of some anti- drug money than the county has been doing lately .
Dump charges have hit the roof since the corporate dump people
seem to get more and more crooked every year,in spite of all kinds of greenwash you see in the papers.
Waste in America could become as big an embarrassment as our foreign policy! What a fun era we live in!
Happy midwinterfest friends
Nico
Zeno Swijtink
12-10-2007, 06:46 AM
Two trash stories.
In the time I lived on Furlong we would often pick up trash when we made the loop along Dusty Lane up the hill and down on Furlong.
Very regularly we would find the same kind of small empty cheap rum bottle in the berm. It was a flat hip flask and I started collecting them on a shelf in my study, with the idea to write a story that could explain the regular find. I never got around doing it and when I moved I finally dumped them all in the recycling bin.
In 2005 we at the Atascadero/Green Valley Watershed Council received a report from someone who had heard a truck stop after dark on the Green Valley Road Bridge over Atascadero Creek and heard trash being dumped into the creek. While the vehicle and the driver(s) were not observed, it was confirmed that a large quantity of trash had been dumped over both sides of the bridge. We made pictures and thought of reporting this to the Deputy District Attorney, Sonoma County Environmental and Consumer Law Division but then discovered from the pictures that there were address labels from the people whose trash this was. We were able to shame them into cleaning out the mess themselves.
There seem to be now a number of hot spots where people dump large trash in the creek or off a hill. Harrison Grade and Scenic Drive/Canyon Road in Forestville come to mind. It's good always to have a camera ready to get evidence of license plate numbers and report this to the Environmental and Consumer Law Division.
On the other hand, since it is so much cheaper to prevent than to clean up, some of the County budget used of trash removal could be used to carrot people into bringing their trash to a transfer station.
Tecumseh
12-10-2007, 11:23 AM
I agree Barrie. There's a notable increase in litter around McDangerous, Toxic Bell, and other fast food joints. They ought to have a contract with the city/town to weekly do a litter pickup within a block radius of their establishment.
Last summer I got a flat tire on my bike and ended up walking home, about an hour and half, picking up trash along the way. I found a bag after a little way so I was able to collect quite a bit of trash. It made a small disaster into a meaningful adventure. Then as the weeks went by I saw litter piling up along the same roads. Most of the litter comes from food take out, much of it fast foods like Burger King, etc. I think that they should pay a litter tax.
Barrie
amalia
12-11-2007, 06:29 AM
So, while you're inspecting the trash piles carefully, how about taking a minute or so to pick it up and throw it away?
And kindly spread the word while you're at it....
Amalia
gino-g
12-12-2007, 10:39 AM
A wonderful chilly morning greeting to my fellow Waccovians.
To toss my 2 cents in, I have recently come up with the idea that picking up discarded cans and bottles (at least the CRV stuff) is as much the offenders loss as it is my gain.
I'm not picking up their trash as much as their loose change. Sure it takes a lot of recycling to accumulate much profit and my hope of hopes is that the trash isn't there in the first place, but it is at least a little way for me to put a positive spin on the immense personal hurt I feel when I walk a road I haven't in a few months (Bohemian Hwy. in Monte Rio - Freestone is a common route for me) and find it littered again, and again.
I agree with Amalia that personal responsibility is the place to start, both to pick up anything you come in contact with (except perhaps the meth chems, unless you have gloves, ewwww), and to encourage others to do the same.
That said, I have been thinking of making my frequent cleanup forays in the far west county a little more organized, perhaps others would be interested in a team effort? I have also thought it would be cool to get a few orange vests and long handled trash picker upper thingeys, to make it a little safer, cleaner, etc. Anyone have hook ups on this sort of stuff?
Kudos to all for reading, posting, doing all you can about an unfortunate local symptom of a larger societal ill.
Gino -
LADYWITHART
12-12-2007, 02:34 PM
:hello:It is good to wear sanitary gloves and dispose of properly. That way you can pick up the icky things too. You can purchase 100 pairs for around $5.00 at Harbor Freight in Santa Rosa.
When I walk for exercise I take a couple of plastic grocery bags and a pair or two of gloves and I feel good about myself and when I drive through I see an improvement for a liitle while.:thumbsup: Suzanne
A wonderful chilly morning greeting to my fellow Waccovians.
To toss my 2 cents in, I have recently come up with the idea that picking up discarded cans and bottles (at least the CRV stuff) is as much the offenders loss as it is my gain.
I'm not picking up their trash as much as their loose change. Sure it takes a lot of recycling to accumulate much profit and my hope of hopes is that the trash isn't there in the first place, but it is at least a little way for me to put a positive spin on the immense personal hurt I feel when I walk a road I haven't in a few months (Bohemian Hwy. in Monte Rio - Freestone is a common route for me) and find it littered again, and again.
I agree with Amalia that personal responsibility is the place to start, both to pick up anything you come in contact with (except perhaps the meth chems, unless you have gloves, ewwww), and to encourage others to do the same.
That said, I have been thinking of making my frequent cleanup forays in the far west county a little more organized, perhaps others would be interested in a team effort? I have also thought it would be cool to get a few orange vests and long handled trash picker upper thingeys, to make it a little safer, cleaner, etc. Anyone have hook ups on this sort of stuff?
Kudos to all for reading, posting, doing all you can about an unfortunate local symptom of a larger societal ill.
Gino -