Well, It Had to Happen Sooner or Later

Rant Alert! Choose a comfortable place and a calming beverage while you read my rant about Fourth of July trash left by visitors to the Lake Tahoe region.

Visitors to the Lake Tahoe-Truckee region of California have been trashing the area for years. On any weekend, the population of Truckee, for example, can rise from the full-time local count of approximately 50K to 85K-150K people. That's quite an uptick in pressure on this pristine environment. Sadly, too many tourists believe it is their privilege to leave a layer of garbage to mark their passage.

When I read this article in the Record-Courier, our local newspaper, I was livid.

https://www.recordcourier.com/news/2023/jul/06/filth-of-july-observed-at-zephyr-shoals/

"The League to Save Lake Tahoe reported 402 volunteers helped clean Lake Tahoe beaches on Wednesday.

'An astounding 6,279 pounds of litter – the equivalent of a three-quarter ton pickup truck – was strewn across the narrow strip of sand and piled between bushes and trees in the nearby forest,' according to the League."

Copyright restrictions forbade me to use a photo of Tahoe beaches, but if you google Lake Tahoe July Fourth trash, you find lots of articles and photos of the devastation. You won’t believe the extent of it.

Just during that one day on one beach near Zephyr Cove, a grand total of over 8500 lbs. of litter was collected by volunteers and an Eco-Clean Solutions Bebot designed to sift through sand to pickup bottle caps, cigarette butts, and other trash. Everything from footwear and apparel, chairs and coolers, to plastic and aluminum containers were left after the holiday revelers went home.

The garbage issue had become so disgusting the story hit regional and national media outlets as well as the UK. Surely, stories in the L.A. Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and other sources would alert the public that California's beloved gem in the Sierra Nevada was weltering in rubbish.

I wondered if and when the Forest Service would close the beaches in order to protect Lake Tahoe's world-famous clarity. Well, it had to happen sooner or later. It would be unthinkable to totally close the beaches, but the Forest Service and other stakeholders proposed a list of changes to solve the problems.

https://mynews4.com/news/local/big-changes-coming-to-lake-tahoe-beaches-after-trashy-fourth-of-july-festivities

"Working in partnership, the League to Save Lake Tahoe, Forest Service and other stakeholders are going further to raise the bar for beach management across the Tahoe Basin. The organizations have made a multi-year commitment to “Tahoe Blue Beaches,” a new model that centers around:

●Education – Proactive outreach prior to and during high-use times, combined with physical signage that gets people’s attention and clearly communicates the “Tahoe way” to responsibly enjoy the outdoors and prevent the impacts of bad behavior.

●Engineering – Adding trash cans, dumpsters, restrooms, and the staffing required for upkeep, along with designing access points that fit the natural contours of the site, because paved roads and buildings are not right for everywhere in Tahoe.

●Enforcement – Enforcing rules and regulations to ensure public lands aren’t misused or abused, following education and engineering."

Of course, I had to respond to this in my usual curmudgeonly way:

Signage? Not only is twenty percent of the American public functionally illiterate, millions of visitors to Lake Tahoe and other recreational areas come from non-English-speaking countries and don't have the language skills required to respond to signage. Also, there are many who simply ignore signs or have the will to obey them.

Trash receptacles? Right! Let's put dumpsters on the beaches, enough for the hordes to properly dispose of their trash. How many dumpsters would do the job? How far apart … every 100 meters or so? When local agencies want businesses to use only brown for their advertising and outside décor, what color shall we paint these dumpsters? Traditional Garbage Container Green? Or shall we try the regulation Business Brown?

Infrastructure? CalTrans etal has already paved trails and built extensive infrastructure in the northeast portion of Lake Tahoe. People can walk through the woods between Incline Village and the State Park without ever laying their feet upon actual soil.

Staff? Will the Forest Service be able to pay "livable wages" for maintenance and cleanup crews during this Great Resignation? Who's going to show up eager to clean toilets and install TP in restrooms? What's more, people also like to use pit toilets as trash cans.

And by all means, let's not forget to incorporate yet another layer of law enforcement to monitor people's behavior. Someone, I'm sure, will love writing rules and regs, but nobody likes a bunch of official Karens clutching their pearls and shaking their fingers at ill-behaved adults and their feral children.

What about the cost of these solutions? Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Cha-ching! Guess whose pockets will open wide for this project. Yours and mine.

Back in the 1950s, Americans were educated via television advertisements to not throw trash along the roadsides, in rivers and lakes, beaches. It worked for decades. What happened? With the "Leave No Trace" mantra added to that message by outdoor recreation industries, there should have been a deep understanding of this Golden Rule of vacation behavior.

In recent years, winter visitors using the sledding hill in Truckee, for example, leave broken sleds on the hill instead of taking them home. Apparently, they are quite sure that others will clean up the mess. This idea justifies their right to lighten their load of garbage before leaving. Since they dumped a load of cash into the local economy; thus they have paid for the privilege to toss that cigarette butt in the grass or leave the toilet paper in the bushes.

 You might be surprised to learn that people have been littering the landscape for eons.

In Craig Child's book, House of Rain, while following the migrations of Ancient Pueblans during the 12th-13th Centuries, he found settlements littered with pottery shards. He remarked how, at Chaco Canyon, it was as if people dropped jars while walking around. The jars broke and people just left the pieces on the ground. And there they remain to this day for us to find and marvel at the craftsmanship. After all, pottery shards aren't garbage. They're treasures from the ancient past telling stories of how people lived.

Well, what can I say? Those people were just as cavalier about garbage deposal as people today. Our era will be known as the Plasticene Era.

As you can see, this issue really rankles with me. Do people do this when they visit their friends' or relatives' homes? Is this behavior really acceptable in other parts of the world? Why?

To relieve my anger about this, I wrote a poem. Maybe it will suggest a solution:

Put it in Your Pocket and Take it Home

If you ever think of visiting our pretty little town

Your rudeness and your driving skills really bring us down.

You're never worth the cost to us when you leave a mess

We don't really need the business of an ill-mannered guest.

Your dog poo and your TP, your tampons and your shields

The beer cans in the fire pits, the diapers in the fields

Your plastic toys and paper, your COVID facemasks too

If you're going to burden our resources, we don't want you.

We'd like to share our wilderness, the mountains and the streams

We understand only too well how this beauty fills your dreams

But please carry a trash bag when you decide to come

So you can put it in your pocket and take it ALL back home.

Thank you, those of you who read this far, for your patience and understanding of something that is dear to my heart. Our planet is precious. Plastic in the environment is such a huge problem that it can't be discussed in this article; but perhaps the comment section can offer opportunities for ideas to flow.