We propose to pick up all the trash in the BLM woods in the Illinois River watershed. And we have received grant funding through the BLM’s Title II program to make this happen! Right now, we are in the stage of gathering information so that our proposal can include a comprehensive list of the trash to be picked up. Do you know where to find:
- A trash dump?
- An abandoned vehicle?
- Dumped appliances?
- Tires?
- Worst of all, RVs?
Our target areas are:
- Rough & Ready area
- Waldo & Takilma areas
- Holland area
- Bear Creek
- Kerby Mainline
- Deer Creek
If you know of any of these items out in the woods somewhere, please let us know! You can use the form to contact us, or just call (541)294-0260. If you contact us using the form, please provide:
- The location – clear enough so that we can find it. Either coordinates, or a link with a pin on a google map, or a description of roads, turns, and mileages
- Quantities! How many bags or yards of trash? How many vehicles, appliances, or RVs?
If you aren’t sure if a given trash site is or is not on BLM-owned land, just send it to us and we’ll find it on our maps. We may not be able to pick it up on non-BLM land under this particular grant, but it does seem like most of the corporate industrial forestland is now gated, the National Forest land is a longer drive into the hills and doesn’t accumulate as much trash, and most of the trash is in fact on BLM land.
There are so many of us in this valley who hate to see all that trash every time we go for a walk or a drive. And there are some fundamental problems that tend to lead people to dumping trash in the woods, such as not having enough funds for the ever-rising fees at the transfer station, or the inconvenience of the ever-shorting hours at the transfer station. However, we believe that if it ALL got picked up, this could give the natural woods a re-set, and make those woods look less like dump sites for future additional dumping. Plus, all those good people out and about in the woods picking up trash is a deterrent in itself, because an actively used road is much less of a no-man’s land.
Picking up trash is hard work, but it is glorious to see the transformation when a given site gets cleaned up. If you’d like to join us in this work, please sign up for our mailing list to be informed when the cleanup events start happening! Even if you don’t have trash sites to send in, please do sign up if you’d like to join us in the cleanups.
We’ll see you out there!
Trash Warriors at Rough and Ready in last June…
