Viewpoints
WILL IT NEVER STOP
By Jerry Cegelske
January 26, 2008
Saturday
I don't know how you react when someone comes onto your property
and dumps their trash for you to clean up, but it happens frequently
in Ketchikan and it is often on property owned by the Borough.
The landfill challenged individuals that are too selfish to
take care of their trash want the taxpayers of the Borough to
clean up after them, while putting people at risk with hazardous
materials.
Many times Borough residents
do not know the effort that goes into cleaning up trashed areas,
the efforts to keep them clean for any length of time, or what
it costs.
Last spring while many of us
were out fishing for that Derby winning king salmon, Girl Scouts
Anna Warmuth, Sydney Nichols, Lillian Vaughn, and Eva Muzika
took time to do their part in keeping the Borough clean. They
spent their Saturday cleaning up the Borough rockpit (your property)
at Mile 15.9 N. Tongass.
Girl Scouts: Anna Warmuth,
Sydney Nichols, Lillian Vaughn, and Eva Muzika after cleaning
up the rockpit at Mile 15.9 N. Tongass. Note the bags of trash
they gathered pictured behind them.
Photograph by Jerry Cegelske
Unfortunately some people subsequently chose to use the area
as a shooting gallery and afterward left their trash lying around
after they had their fun. Others used it as a refuse dump to
place the bones from the deer they shot. Either way they make
it difficult for others to use the property until it gets cleaned
up again.
It is disappointing that people
feel the need to disparage the efforts of four small Girl Scouts
and their leaders by not taking the small effort to clean up
their litter or to take their trash to the landfill. All the
Scouts wanted to do was make the place they call home a better
place for all of us by cleaning it up.
I guess the people that trash
public land take the view that the Borough and State have enough
money that it can be spent cleaning up these areas over and over
again. Money spent on cleaning these areas could be better spent
on the needs of students, schools, seniors, bus riders, ferry
users and others.
To Anna, Sydney, Lillian, Eva
and their leaders, "Thank you" for your work, many
in the Borough appreciate and support your efforts.
Jerry Cegelske
Borough Code Enforcement Officer
Ketchikan, AK
Fire extinguishers
and other trash left at the rockpit. They don't explode in a
spectacular manner, the pressure is released and some of the
powder leaks out.
A shot up television-
note the thickness of the glass on the ground.
Deer bones dumped at
the rockpit.
Some of the fire extinguishers
collected were purchased second hand as they had $1.00 price
tags on them.
A partially burned
chair left near the waterline and hiking trail
A pile of used lumber
dumped near Mile 1.3 Revilla Rd.
A shop vacuum canister
tossed along Revilla Road.
Received January 23, 2008 -
Published January 26, 2008
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