A Styrofoam Bombing on the Riverwalk

8/19/14

Saturday, I started seeing little pieces of pinkish Styrofoam outside the Greenwood dog park as soon as I got out of my truck.  This was obviously purposeful marking of territory.  Styrofoam peanuts are generally found only by main roads, randomly, where they blow out of the top of trash trucks because some people don’t bag their trash before putting it in the can. 

I threw balls for my dog, Petey, and then we headed down to the river at the Greenwood Overlook to cool off and relax, picking up little pieces of Styrofoam along the way.  Whole pieces started appearing as we got to the Overlook and I could see that they continued down the trail, but we went down to the river to check it out first.  The dead deer in the water by the bank that I had reported a few days before was gone.  I did find most of a half-rack of Coors Light cans near the climb out, and a towel up the tree-root ladder, where I investigated because of a cigarette package at the base.  I took them back to my truck, not far, before heading further down the trail.

I would normally visit only this spot along the river on a Saturday morning, since I had a group cleanup under the Caveman Bridge at 10:00 and some refreshments and ice to buy first.  But now, I had to check out the extent of the Styrofoam along the trail and police the lower fishing block and camping spot.   I don’t know or care if anyone sleeps there and leaves nothing; I clean up anything that anyone leaves there, including fire pits.

The pieces of Styrofoam became more numerous as I walked down the trail.  I knew I didn’t have time to pick them up along the way, and just picked up some pieces along the way.  I ran into a lady who mentioned that they had been there for about two days, apparently spread right after my last visit.  The timing may not be coincidental.  I mention the Bridge cleanup on my latest leaflet, and someone using the river walk would be familiar with my cleaning patterns.  I’ve only been getting there about twice a week lately.

When I got to the lower fishing spot at the end of Spruce Street, I found nearly another half-rack of cans, this time mixed Coors Light and Pabst.  It seems that the Coors drinker switched to Pabst.  I hear it’s on sale.

The kind of litter, pink Styrofoam, makes me think that the perp is female.  And I can’t help but connect the Styrofoam to the Coors/Pabst drinker; these are light beers with little hop, and I’ve been picking Coors Light cans up by the half-rack for weeks.  But this is sheer speculation in work that lends itself to forensic thinking.

But what is readily apparent is that this littering was neither accidental nor unthinking.  It was purposeful and aimed right at my litter cleaning efforts, probably in retaliation for cleaning up under the Caveman Bridge.  It appears that this person walked along the River Trail toward the Dog Park, tossing Styrofoam, and started to run out too soon to make it to the Dog Park, so she started crumbling the last pieces to make them go farther.

That Saturday, I had to stop cleaning at that point and get to the Bridge.  Sunday was my day of rest.  Monday, I cleaned along the path to the end of the Wastewater Treatment plant fence before leaving for my 10:30 Networking Toastmasters meeting.  I could see that the Styrofoam continued down the trail, and notified my liason with the City that Parks needed to get the rest.

Along the way, picking up Styrofoam near the blackberries at the edge of the river bank, I found another river access that was not obvious from the trail, about half-way between the two known spots behind the Wastewater Treatment Plant, seemingly recently opened with weed whackers, with steps cut in the bank for easier access.  It has two conglomerate shelves that are currently out of the water, and a deep hole in front of the lower one.  Perhaps fishermen cut the steps; it looks to be a great spot, and unreachable otherwise except by boat.  It was also being used by drinkers, with cans and toilet paper in evidence. 

The Styrofoam Bomber thereby showed me an access I didn’t know about and she did.  They often do this with their litter; I follow it and find amazing things.  When one marks territory with litter, it can lead curious people to one’s hideouts.  That top conglomerate shelf is nice and dry and soaks up the heat of the sun during the day for a warm sleeping surface at night.

Tuesday, I postponed Westholm cleaning to see how far the Styrofoam went, walking Petey further down the trail after our ball-throwing and checking the river spots, which were pretty clean.  There was a fisherman and his buddy watching him.  They were telling me how they pick up litter, as I picked up litter around them.  I get this a lot.  Some I know are lying for my benefit.

Of course I found a few pieces where I had already cleaned; it will take weeks to get all the pieces.  As I walked down the trail I hadn’t cleaned yet, I started finding broken pieces again, within a few feet of the trail, while there were whole pieces further out.  This made me think that Parks had sent a lawn mower along the trail to pick up the litter, which may have picked up some, but broke up others, making just as much or more work picking up the pieces.  I reported it to my liason, our Assistant City Manager, David Reeves, leaving a message.

A few minutes later, I called to report my displeasure with having to pick my way through knee-high blackberries and shrubs that had been cut to that height months previously to retrieve a chip bag lying on the weeds, and got to talk to him.  When he made a joke about punji sticks, I told him about the time on Work Crew, out at the Food Bank Farm, when I fell and nearly got killed by a bamboo stalk cut off about 8” high; it cut my forehead, a few inches above my eye.

A while later, I called him and let him know that I’d found Ground Zero of the Styrofoam Bombing, where she had apparently opened the bag and lost a bunch right off the bat.  There was none apparent past that.  At this point, my bucket was pretty full and it would take another half-hour to pick them up one at a time, so I asked him to ask Parks to get the rest, about 100 feet or so east of the foot bridge on the river side of the path, and headed back to my truck. 

 

This makes a third obviously retaliatory incident connected apparently to cleaning under the Caveman Bridge.  The first was dumping a 3-gallon bucket worth of moldy dog manure on the Caveman Bridge, soon after I started cleaning under it a couple weeks in a row.  The second, soon after that, was dumping a baggy full of push pins and other sharp objects in front of my house.  I didn’t get back there for a month or so, but then started the weekly cleanup under the Bridge.  And now one has attacked my home ground, the River Walk.

The litterers and day sleepers in Riverside Park are not vagrants, for the most part; they are residents, unemployed and disorderly, only some of them homeless.  They like to hang out with their friends in that area, and they like their surroundings disorderly.  They really resent it being cleaned up.  They know that disorderly surroundings repel the orderly and respectable and they like it that way.

Cleaning the Fairgrounds frontage: no Carl; no crowd

8/9/14

I got to talk with Carl Wilson on his show on Friday about the campaign for Public Litter Cleaning and the Fairgrounds cleanup, but he said that he had business out of town and wouldn’t be there, though he asked his listeners to show up and help me. 

There had been some talk at the last cleanup, under the Bridge, that it was going to be hot out in front of the Fairgrounds in full sun.  I knew when Carl bowed out that no one was going to show up. 

There was a cooling breeze and I didn’t have to use my mister to wet down my sleeves and hat until noon. But no Carl, no crowd, despite Tom Ray's best efforts to call out some help Saturday morning.  The power of celebrity only works when the celebrity says he'll be there.

The first thing to do was clean the area around my truck, but not the trash pit between the Fairgrounds fence and the Flooring shop retaining wall.  We would have gotten it if anyone else had shown up.

Trash and goat heads (surrounding the butt at the bottom) at the corner of the flooring shop lot.  I cut goat heads on sight, in most places.  They are annuals which need not be pulled; just cut the crown off the root.

The trash pit between the fence and the wall, much of it old and buried.

The second thing to do was to clean the landscaped area around the entrance.  The heck of that area is that one can’t actually see the litter from the road; it is either chopped up by the mower or is between the retaining wall and shrubbery, though there was one cup in the top of the hedge.  There were ties and wire on the fence by people removing signs and balloons (or not, in the case of balloons), but they are not obvious. 

Balloon string and zip ties left in the fence after events.

Sign-hanging wire left on fence.  Cleaned it all off a few months ago.

I was surprised by one piece of trash.  It looked like clothing through the fence, but when I picked it up, it turned out to be the remains of a large balloon:

Still, I got about 10-15 gallons of trash from the hedges, most of a litter bag.  The wind blows it under the fence, but people also know that hedges are a handy place to stash trash.  Hedges that attract trash are forbidden under Portland nuisance code, which is apparently enforced as well as ours--not.  One frequently finds a lot of trash in hedges; the uglier and weedier they are, the more one finds.  Unless they are frequently trimmed and cleaned, they are inherently ugly and attract more ugliness.

Foot traffic in front of the fairgrounds is low in quantity and quality, mostly disorderly types that drop litter, including my leaflets.  I mostly didn’t offer any, unusual for me; I’m usually not picky.  One man who took a leaflet was pushing a shopping cart full of his possessions, heading for Crescent City.  He said that Medford has been taken over by tweakers, and is too violent.  He gave me a dollar right off the bat.  I don't mind taking a dollar from a poor man; his thanks are sincere.

He was once a groundskeeper for a California city, before they fired all their gardeners and hired contractors who don’t care, as most cities did in the 80’s.  City grounds keeping has not recovered from this disaster, and won’t until cities take back the work and do it themselves.  They can’t properly manage their landscaping contractors for building or maintenance, because they have no one among higher staff with knowledge and experience in the work.  I told him that there is a lot of demand for landscaping on the coast, which is why Chet’s garden center is moving to Brookings.

Since I had no one to help me, I knew that I could not do the whole frontage as planned, to the end of the west parking lot.  I decided to do something that would show, and clean detritus from the gutter along the sidewalk on one side of the entrance, creating a “before and after” picture in front: a roadside with grass clippings and straw piled by the wind along with scattered gravel and dirt from traffic, followed by a stretch of cleaned roadside to the flooring shop.  

It’s not a service; it’s a protest.  If I was being paid by the fairgrounds or county, I would not leave a job half-done.  Some glass had been broken in that stretch that had to be cleaned anyways.  Broken glass is something I clean anywhere at any time, stopping my car and turning around to do it if necessary.

I cleaned the litter, but not the detritus, from the north side of the front hedges along the parking lot west of the entrance, inside the fairgrounds. The detritus is thick there, piled by the wind to the west of each blue spruce.  I didn’t get to the north side of the east fence or behind the office at all, except through the fence. 

Detritus along the north side of the south fence and hedge, west of the front entrance.

I ran into a volunteer whom I know on my way back from the bathroom in the Pepsi Building, who takes care of plantings around the Fairgrounds, and wound up showing her the piles of detritus to the west of the entrance.  After she saw the piles, she said she was sorry I had shown her (because she now feels the need to clean them up).  I cried, “I know!  But I had to share my pain!”

I spent an hour or so cleaning the street, left a bit after 2:00 and didn’t go to another cleaning job; I was sore and had an upset stomach that I treated with slippery elm and chamomile tea.

 West frontage, before sweeping

West frontage, Sunday morning.

 East frontage, Sunday morning

Regardless of whether this Indiegogo campaign succeeds as a business, it has raised awareness of litter as a problem that can and must be solved, which is the most that anyone can ask of a protest.  If nothing else, a lot of businesses are posting “Give Your Litter Cleaners Time andTools” and might actually read it.  "#Litter is #tagging" is getting around on Twitter.  And Carl Wilson is telling people,  "Open your eyes and see the litter!" and "Don't let the authorities tell you that nothing can be done about it."

Five and a half half-racks: The Bottle Bill doesn’t work

8/12/14

Before I even pulled up to the farmer’s driveway and turned around to park in front of White Rock (a popular fishing and recreation spot on Lower River Road, across the river from Schroeder boat landing) I saw the boxes of bottles: 5 half-racks and a 6-pack.  Someone had been feeling civic-minded enough to gather their bottles and set them on the side of the road for some desperate person to pick up and feed into machines for $3.80.  Being bottles, no one on a bicycle would be able to carry them, so that desperate person would have to be driving a car.

Instead, I picked them up and stuck them in my truck.  Before I left, I remembered the need for a photo and recreated the scene.  Between those two times, I cleaned the rest of both sides of the road along the site, and then filled several grocery bags with bottles and cans scattered among the rocks and sand, along with a couple 5-gallon buckets of regular trash. 

At home, I ended up filling 2 half-full metal trash cans with the bottles and cans, which filled up our 3 cans devoted to returnables, mostly beer containers.  It is not unusual to find a half-rack stash of cans when cleaning along the river below the wastewater treatment plant; I found one such stash the next day.  Sometimes they are easy to get to.  Other times, I have to reach deep into the blackberries with my grabber to get them all.

I am finding so many that Donnie is starting to wonder if it is worth the time and hassle of hauling them to a store and putting them in the machines.  Obviously, I give them to him because it is not worth the hassle for me.

Before the machines, the bottle bill kind of worked.  Now, it does not work at all for its stated purpose, which is to reduce litter. 

It is not worth the trouble for most people to haul them to the stores and put them in those very annoying machines.  But many people think that it is some kind of charity to leave them on the ground for other people to find.  Some don’t like to put them in trash cans, lest the money be lost.  One time, I found a kitchen trash bag full of cans at the back entrance to Burger King at Fruitdale where they had not been a few minutes earlier.  It seems that someone saw me picking up litter there and decided to be generous with their returnables and save themselves the hassle.

Those who actively look for returnables go rooting through trash cans for them, and they are not necessarily neat about it; they often leave the lids off the cans.  I have to write “Trash only” on my yellow litter bags that the city allows me to leave next to their trash cans in our parks for pickup, because someone was dumping them in the trash cans and searching for returnables, filling the can and making it useless for others.

On the other hand, when I was on Work Crew and was cleaning up the string of camps along the Parkway, we found a pile of quart beer bottles in a camp, along with separate piles of food trash.  These vagrants were apparently stealing or begging for what they needed, and could not be bothered with those heavy bottles for a nickel apiece.

The people who left those boxes of bottles probably gathered the rest of their trash as they generated it, just like their bottles, and took the trash away.  But since they could not be bothered with feeding the bottles into machines in a nasty, stinky room for nickel apiece, they left them for someone else to take away, probably feeling really charitable and civic-minded doing so.

If there was not a Bottle Bill in Oregon, they probably would have taken their bottles with them, and hauled them to the recycler for free.

Under the Caveman Bridge: Carl brought a group!

Caveman Bridge, downstream view, North Bank

8/2/14

I had a good radio show with Carl Wilson on KAJO on Wednesday, for about 15 minutes at the end of Eyewitness Reports.  On Friday, he called and said that he’d be working with me on Saturday under the Bridge, and had been asking some friends to join him.  I was thrilled and fairly certain that he, at least, would show up.

As I got in the truck on Saturday, packed for the cleanup, I heard him talking on KAJO about our project, and putting out a last-minute call to the public.  He told people that a litter grabber is recommended, as well as gloves and a bucket, and that he was bringing a box of gloves as well, which made me very happy. 

I got there in time to get my signs set by the entrance and get mostly set up with refreshments and sign-up list before he came, and the group started gathering.  I had them sign up and equipped those without buckets with yellow litter bags with my stickers and “Trash only” written on them, explaining that the city allows me to leave these bags next to their trash cans for disposal, but I have to write “trash only” to stop collectors from emptying them into the trash cans in search of returnables. 

Truly, the Bottle Bill is out of date; it is hardly worth the hassle of turning them in.  I don’t.  I give them to a man who is starting to think it isn’t worth the hassle of putting them in the machine.  I think that they cause more litter than they get cleaned up, making some think that it’s okay to throw them because some bum will pick them up.  I learned on work crew that even many bums don’t think they are worth returning; they slept next to piles of them.

We started on the top of the Bridge, which didn’t take long with the group doing both sides at once, and thoroughly with us changing sides and going back.  From there, we pretty much split up and covered the area, some going after the big trash down by the river, where people eat and hang out on the relatively private rocks; some went out on the disk golf course; some went after the small litter around the tree and the butt pit below.  I decided that the steps needed to be blown off and got my battery blower; I ended up getting a broom and dustpan by the time I got to the bottom; the dirt was thick in the corners and it piled up too much for a blower.

I didn’t get any pictures; my camera battery was dead.  Otherwise I could have gotten a shot of the broken plastic yard chair and twin-sized inch-thick plastic foam pad that Steve Roe brought up from the river.  I later found a fully-equipped fishing pole where I presume he found the furniture, and gave it away within 50 feet.

We stayed pretty scattered out, but four of us gathered below the sidewalk under the Bridge and worked on the butts and broken glass on that slope and especially at the bottom against the curved bridge support.  I used the screen-bottom dustpan that my housemate Donnie made for me to use on that spot, as the soil there is loose fine silt.

We worked there until noon, when Carl said he had another appointment.  Some had already gone home by then, and I thought we were the last still there.  Rebecca and Madison Anderson thereby each won a prize for being the last to leave, after helping me gather tools: their choice of the gardening hats in my bag.  They chose matching hats with large brims all the way around.

I stayed to work down by the river a little while and see what had been left.  At one point, I found glass broken on the side of a concrete pipe, and needed a broom and dustpan again.  As I was going to my truck to get them, I met one of our helpers, Carolyn Henderson, coming in with her tools, saying it was time for her to leave.  She’d gone home to get a rake at one point, and got back to work.  So she won a choice of gardening hats as well.

Carl and I will be working at the Fairgrounds this Saturday the 9th, cleaning the frontage from one end to the other.  I expect he will bring a group there

also, including some that showed up for the Bridge.  The Fairgrounds had the weeds cut along the west parking lot fence.  Hurray!  We'll be working under the Bridge again on the 16th.  Register at Volunteercleanup.org to join the cleanup.

Nine people showed up and participated.  Beside the above-mentioned, Trish Bull, Jiggy Bim, Jennifer Black, Marie Solomon and Kristi Roe worked to help make this “a city that looks safe and is safe.”

Under the Caveman Bridge, Week 3: Back to the 50's

7/26/14

I was going to set up as usual just inside Riverside Park, but the West entrance was blocked off.  A couple of gentlemen came up in a cart and I asked them if all the entrances were blocked.  Indeed they were; a classic car show had taken over the park for the day.  But they said that I could clean litter from under the Bridge.

They had opened the entrance to the skate park on the other side of 6th Street/Williams Highway, and the Boy Scouts were collecting $3 for parking in it, apparently anywhere west of the Caveman Bridge.  The grass there is not watered, so parking couldn't damage it.

Indeed, apart from some mowing and hedging, it is totally unmaintained, and I discovered another patch of star thistle alongside the beginning of the bike/pedestrian path under the Bridge.  I got to thinking that the city needs to aggressively maintain the disc golf course, not use it for occasion parking.  Disc golfers are a messy lot even in a well-maintained area.  Ugly landscaping gives them more excuse for messiness, and maintenance workers less reason to do a good job.  No one likes to maintain ugly.

The Boy Scouts waived away my money, since I would be working.  I offered them some of my lemon water and grapes, and gave them leaflets.  Since I was parking in that end of the park, I had to clean it first, at least along the street and path.  

I quickly found a mess of auto glass where someone had apparently smashed a window, and went back for the broom and dustpan and cleaned it up.  Then I got to pulling trash out of the ivy and bushes to the south of my parking space, and kept going to the corner of Park Street.  

There were 3 bottles smashed along the sidewalk and in the parking lot around the spa place, requiring sweeping.  The owner ignored it as he drove out over it with a hot tub, just as he ignores the other litter and the weeds that infest his pavements.  But I was able to give a leaflet or two to people who saw me working on the glass.

I did all that even before walking the bridge, I think.  After cleaning the top, where I found a bit less trash behind the parapet, mostly old and grown over, I proceeded to the stairs, the tree, and then down to the eating area by the river to get the big trash.  

That's where I ran into Chelsea Bledsoe's brother, who offered to help.  I regret that I forgot his first name, forgetting to fix it in my memory by saying it three times or writing it down.  But the young Mr. Bledsoe helped me for about an hour and was good company. 

It being Back to the 50’s, I decided to skip the 7^th Street Bridge after my mid-afternoon break, but after seeing how dead the park was getting, I went there after all, cleaned the litter from the top, and got the last 2 sections of detritus on the East side.