Volunteers Respond to Illegal Dumping

It started as an amazing weather day in September and I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone -- get in a trail run and check the condition of the section of the Rachel Carson Trail that I steward.

As soon as I pulled into Agan Park, I noticed that someone illegally dumped trash again. There were old household items, papers, contractor trash, and lots of durable things like plastic that would be there for years if nothing was done.

I took pictures and looked through the paperwork to see if there was a name or address, but this stuff was super old. I also noticed that the trash spilled into a small stream.

As a Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy board member, I knew that we would have a contact to help get this investigated and cleaned up. Before I took off on my run, I emailed the board the pictures and location and within minutes I got an email back saying they would forward my report to the right people.

Back home after my run, I jumped on Facebook and saw a post from the local community about the trash dump. They were upset about this being done in their park and they began proposing ideas about how to get it cleaned up. I commented on the post letting everyone know that I was with the Rachel Carson Trails Conservancy board and also a trail steward and that we were already in contact with someone to get it cleaned up and to come up with ideas on how to prevent it from happening again.

Within a week or so, everything was cleaned up. I even checked the stream to make sure that it got cleaned up too. It was completely clean and if you didn't see it when it was there, you wouldn't know it was ever there.

This is one amazing way that the RCTC connects with communities to help ensure that our land will be here for future generations to enjoy and wildlife have a clean place to flourish.