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.
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