Armed with only a rake and good intentions.

[Gordon_Freeman]

I think people do these kinds of things because there is no harsh punishment for it. People who dump trash like that should be charged with felonies and other harsh consequences. Maybe a good punishment would be the confiscation of the vehicles they used to bring the trash in. The government then could sell the vehicles to pay for enforcement.

 

[hermannr]

Blarby!

It may be possible to work something out with forestry/blm/and the county so you at least do not have to pay dump fees.

If you can get your local club to help with a work day, it might even be easier to get your dump fees covered that way. I've done it in WA. When you are dumping by the ton it can get expensive.

 

[talldragon]

Blarby,
More power to you .

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" (not sure who said this) or something like that.

Wish more shooters could step-up and do the same at local shooting areas...

 

[Tomcat47]

Blarby... Hats off to you! I only wish I was not on East Coast and I would help!

Route666.... Amen!

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

tnxdshooter .... I understand your complacency, but no good cause should ever become a lost cause! And really?? little "g"

But that is how a cause gets lost, when we are more concerned over a spelling error than getting to work at a difficult cause!

And Blarby...back a few years ago we had a similar place to go shooting, and the same thing happened to it....the county put up gates and locked us out!

We went to them, done some clean up and convinced them that through a local gun club we were able to get keys to gate and as a club we policed behavior. It worked pretty well.

You may be able to put up some signage laying out some rules and posting fines for leaving that type garbage, with some signage stating this area under surveilance. In todays world they would be worried about cameras. You could also put up some deer cameras to catch some of the ones that are trashing it up for everyone else.

I feel certain BLM would be willing to right some citations for revenue if they caught the guilty on camera! And word would travel fast in the area, that fines are stiff if you get caught trashing the place, and that it is being watched heavily!

Anyway, good luck with your cause. Its a good one!

 

[JTHunter]

In all liklihood, it isn't "fellow shooters" doing the dumping, just cheap, stupid, and lazy townies that don't want to pay the extra haulage fees for "large items".

Good luck on the cleanup!

 

[788Ham]

There is/was a place SO of Denver, in a national forest, that everyone used as a "shooting spot". It had been used for several years just to plink and shoot a few rounds. THEN the slobs moved in, as has been said earlier, TV's, mattresses, logs cut up, trees cut down, just a hog stye! The forest service closed the place down, nobody can use the place now. I believe the state has now gotten involved, lots of talk has been thrown at it, but nothing positive as yet, other than our tax dollars spent for nothing. Its all kind'a like shoveling manure against the tide, nothing will probably be done about it, especially hauling the trash out of the national forest!

 

[Hardtarget]

We have about 15 acres out far enough to shoot on safely. One guy had permisson to shoot. He moved to another state and left forty (or more) of the small propane canisters for me to haul off. Yea...I was kind of ticked off to say the least. If he comes back he will not have that priviledge again.

Mark

 

[Hoppes Love Potion]

What they should do is allow shooting at the actual town dump. Problem solved.

 

[BCRider]

I only browsed through a few posts but enough to be totally saddened by how lazy and self centered people are these days.

To those that are trying to make a difference and posted such I comend you. It's a thankless job and there are too few of you.

Sadly the folks that make the mess at these sites would not read this thread once they know what it's about.

Hell, it's hard enough to get these same people to clean up after themselves at club ranges where they KNOW they need to leave it at least as nice as they found it.

That Pooh cartoon is just a little too realistic .......

 

[Ignition Override]

We know that it is only one symptom of a much worse problem. You should see the litter around roads in the outer Memphis-area suburbs.
This is at the end of a Pink Floyd song: "Good manners (don't) cost nothing": "Dark Side of the Moon".

Many Americans really don't like clean, attractive road landscape which is seen by everybody. Maybe they've never experienced clean landscapes, and it looks normal. Conditioning?
At least the vast majority of west (and maybe east) Europeans appreciate theirs. You can easily imagine how parts of it might have looked in ancient and medieval times. There is at least one hiking trail between any pair of villages, with one or two cars parked at the trail heads, opening onto clean grass between dark clusters of tall fir trees.

Why do so many Americans have no pride, or they don't have the patience, combined with the typically very self-centered American (I want...now) attitude? Maybe our huge country is just taken for granted by some.

 

[Certaindeaf]

1. How would you dispose of the pile? I wouldnt, you are fighting a lost cause and wasting your time because idiots just don't give a damn and it will just happen again.

2. I do not shoot those types of sights cuz it is illegal here.

3. I could care less what you are doing. Just stay out of my way while shooting I don't want to have to worry about accidentally hitting anyone.

4. I do not know of any sights of which you speak. Also God should be capitalized using a lower case g in God is disrepectful.

5. I wouldnt assist cuz it is a waste of time. Period!

I am not trying to be an arse just stating facts that society does not give a damn about the environment and it will just continue to happen which is sad. Believe me I am as pissed about it as you but I dont fight lost causes.

Sent from Droid Incredible on Verizon Wireless

With that attitude, I must ask and or wonder do you even bother to vote?

 

[blarby]

Unf, as helpful as they would be, I don't think I'd feel comfortable bringing scouts out to that area currently....not for cleanup anyway.

There really is a lot of broken glass and sharp/rusty metal out there at the target end of things.

I'm going to have to investigate finding a few helpful souls with some pickups and gloves I believe.

Another option I've received has been a burn pile. This might not work for the metal, but given the large clearing space, anyone else want to chime in on the feasibility of that ?

 

[Tomcat47]

Maybe the BLM or county would lend some help via a Track hoe to get it all up in managable piles....metal ( which can produce income for the cause ) Then what could be burnt - then what needs to go to landfill. Even if BLM or county would not have (provide -they do have it) this resource, you may find a local that is in the excavation business willing to help.

I think with some effort the county and BLM would appreciate your efforts and possibly help since really your tax dollars pay there wages.

News! That would be my next step! Reporters love garbage in many various forms, but I feel they would be eager to throw that on TV .... People are Trashing our land! and there are citizens who care and the county officials will not miss a PR campaign for sure!

And as far as Scouts... when I was Asst. Scout Master... we would have done this type project! We would have just give them all the safety equipment to do the work (gloves, boots, etc.) and set them in teams with adult instruction and supervision. Do not under estimate them boys, they are more responsible and mature than most boys there age. They want to make a difference in the world that is why they are scouts.

 

[CONNEX 3300]

If I lived withing 300 miles of you I would be glad to help. But I am much farther than that so all I can say is Thank You for doing what you can. Hopefully some or most of that trash is just dumped and not brought by shooters.

Here is an idea I don't think anyone has yet mentioned.

Could you talk to a game warden or deputy sherriff (if they have authority there) or any other willing law enforcement official and see if maybe he would stakeout that area for a couple of weekends? If it is a high frequency dump area it wouldn't take too long for some yahoos to swing by with their trash. He should impose the strongest penalty possible. (probably a heavy fine.) I doubt a judge would show much mercy.

If two or three people had the book thrown at them for dumping, I am pretty sure that word would get around fast.

 

[Certaindeaf]

.News! That would be my next step! Reporters love garbage in many various forms, but I feel they would be eager to throw that on TV .... People are Trashing our land! and there are citizens who care and the county officials will not miss a PR campaign for sure!.

Fairly good idea. The "news" is a powerful force multiplier. However, perhaps it's just me, but my fear would be that given this/certain publicity, an easy target might be outlined to hamstringers.. we know of deeds done and things that are capable by a certain portion of the political spectrum. I can easily see essentially "anarchists"/whatever doing a setup, complete with film footage etc of what they "found".

Blarby, good for you.. I'm up here north but perhaps we'll talk. Please keep up the good work.

 

[DavidMS]

Couple of thoughts

If only we had that sort or problem in the DC area!

I like the idea of organizing, talking to gun store owners, finding local/state forums to publicize it. When you have cleaned it up, contact the local media for a feel good story. As for monitoring I wonder if there is a local hackspace (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hackerspace) that could be contacted about some homebrew surveillance gear that phones home via a wireless card. Just a tip, don't put the under surveillance sign in/near the site, locate it back a ways on the road, perhaps by the turn off for the shooting site that the area is being monitored by the forest service for illegal dumping.

As for why people do this sort of thing, its because we have a society where there is a decline in a sense of duty so instead people write rules (some rules, like don't dump trash in national forests are necessary even with a strong sense of duty in the general populace).

 

[monet61]

Blarby;
You have my utmost respect. Most people just leave trash, not remove it. We just had one of the more popular areas shut down for the very same reason. If people would only pack out their own trash and a handful of someone elses, we wouldn't have these problems.

 

[TNboy]

TNXDSHOOTER, you are a disgrace to Tennessee and gun owners in general. It is obvious that you are self centered, only worried about yourself, and are in general part of the problem and not the solution.

Blarby, good on you for your efforts. If you can manage to get it cleaned up it will get better as people will be less likely to dump trash in a clean area as they would one that is already littered up.

 

[blarby]

Allrighty.

Two steps frward, one step back....sort of.

Was a able to meet a local scrapper at the spot this morning and get rid of the 'eavy metal.

+1 !

Unfortunately, it was clear as crystal last night in eugene..... and everything froze solid. Gonna have to wait for a little warmer morning to remove anything else from the frozen broken rock !

 

[Certaindeaf]

Go blarby, go!

 

[blarby]

As a small side note.....

Some of your suggestions are leading to useful progress !

I am loathe to involve the media in any event..... Even here in PRO oregon, I do not want this mess advertised in our local media. I can't believe that any possible positive would outweigh any possible negative.

There are a lot of spots like this, I am assuming.

Yes it is a problem in need of remedy.

No, I am not in favor of very publicly airing our "dirty laundry" in an attempt to generate support or sympathy.

This isn't a problem that's going to go away overnight, I know that.

It IS however, a problem which is user- created. Most of the non-users would appreciate any additional fodder we as "us" provide to them freely.

I'm not in the process of giving them that fodder....i'm currently in the business of removing it..as expediently and as quietly as possible.

 

[tekarra]

At a place where I used to shoot years ago, near the end of the day, one of the crusty old timers would call a cease fire and order everyone to clean up. Don't recall anyone every dissenting. Probably would have been told not to come back.

 

[blarby]

Some updates !

I was able to find a second site to address. Its a work in progress !

At site one, someone was nice enough to shoot a tree down onto the rock pile.

Thanks guys, that really helps. Not only was it a live tree, but now you've made it harder for the machines, not just the people, to access what we're trying to keep access to

Anyway,

I've included some more pics detailing the work left to be done at site one on the target end, and the actual progress on the " spent casings" and " unshot beer container" end.

I will note that there has been a heap *snicker* of progress at the target end of site one, even though it doesn't look it.

Someone was kind enough to remove the enormous pile of shotgun hulls along with most of the bowling pin fragments. ( ) was my first response on that last one, but I'm not about to whizz on aid unlooked for.

Small side note : For those of you who might have recognized it by now, and noticed something.....yes the tree probably just threw the herring off the actual site location.....can't prevent that one, and considered that before posting the tree information.....in the end I figured It was worth the pics in the name of documentation pertaining to the progress and its setbacks

I've also presented a representative picture of the oil sheens pervasive to this site. They are a little tricky to photograph correctly with my camera and the magnificent foglighting at the site today, but that one came out the clearest.

Since my little silver bullet showed up in the site pic, I figured I'd show you what kinda cargo space I'm working with. You can feel free to take the car comments elsewhere ! My one throw in that pot is this : that car has gotten in and out of some places that would make lesser vehicles weep. Front wheel drive and 21st century antislip, anti-sway, and anti-roll technologies combined with 1500lbs of batteries are AMAZING.... and I was raised a pickup guy by choice.

 

[blarby]

ahh, more pics.

These are the site one pics mentioned above.

 

[blarby]

Site two pics mentioned above. This is actually a really nice long range site, and the way fog hangs here is mesmerizing. I need a better camera.