I was in New York City over the weekend for a wedding, but was very disheartened when I finally read this story in my news backlog: over the long weekend, many parts of the Angeles National Forest were utilized by residents. That’s the good news. The bad news is that those citizens apparently never learned to pick up after themselves.
KCAL reports that in one canyon alone (they never mention which one, but it certainly looks like the East Fork of the San Gabriel River in the accompanying video) had upwards of 30,000 pounds of trash left in it over the long weekend. THIRTY. THOUSAND. POUNDS.
East Fork, especially the lower stretches near the trailhead, has had its litter problems in the past, but this is ridiculous. In the video, trash is shown left on the ground all over the canyon, even where dumpsters were nearby. Full collections of lawn furniture were discarded in the water, along with plastic bottles, wrappers, and used diapers – all in the watershed that supplies Los Angeles with 35% of its drinking water.
We have a lot of readers who volunteer in or around that canyon picking up trash, and many many options have been discussed for this ongoing problem. But this weekend makes it clear those solutions aren’t working yet.
Last month, Thomas Contreras was named Supervisor of the Angeles National Forest. I know he’s got a lot on his plate right now, with the constant underfunding, the Station Fire recovery efforts, and another fire season about to begin – but litter, specifically in the East Fork area – is definitely an issue that needs to be on his radar.
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Looking at it from another perspective, the concentrated destruction in San Gabriel Canyon is a cloud with a silver lining. Having such an easily accessible area serves to focus the activities of the flatlanders and keeps the bulk of their damages concentrated in a relatively small area along the river bottoms and close to the road ends. All of us can think of many beuatiful undisturbed places in nearby areas that these vermin would never dream of going because it requires actual physical effort. Just imagine if the ‘trashers’ were distributed evenly throughout the forest!
This is not an educational problem. This is a cultural problem. You have a culture that values the convenience of dumping trash in the creek (so they don’t have to carry it a few hundred yards back to their car) over basic respect for wild public lands. Ain’t multiculturalism grand!
Last time I was up there, the USFS ‘ranger’ was so busy writing the $5 parking tickets that he couldn’t walk the 100 yards up West Fork to cite the revelers for blatant illegal fire and littering violations. When I told the ‘ranger’ about the armed dope growers we stumbled on up in Bear Canyon, he said ‘it wasn’t their juridiction’. A little enforcement could go a long way.
I used to think that spanish language signs might help, but experience has confirmed that you can’t assume that there is literacy amongst the masses.
Is it a coincidence that we see all of this Mexican tagging, McDonalds wrappers, and Cheetos bags in the same area? I think not. A small group of people give the rest of them a bad name.
I was stopped at a red light today. Next to me was the bus stop above the Lake ave gold line train station. There were numerous benches for people to sit on as well as an equal number of trash receptacles for people to deposit “trash” found next to the benches. Guess what? There were excessive amounts of trash found under the benches!
Also my neighbor whose home was foreclosed upon had a really bad habit of leaving trash on the street. (No sidewalk) . Cash register receipts, paint roller/bucket wraps, Mc Donalds drink cups always in front of my fence.
What to do???
I’ll never understand why people get a thrill out of tagging rocks on a trail, do they think their homies will be hiking on the trail and think that they’re so cool?
It’s definitely a lack of education, I’ve seen other cultures in the South of the US do the same thing on trails and hiking spots.
If there is no enforcement of litter laws , graffiti laws and vandalism laws, then nothing will change.
Meanwhile, those that claim the issue is “cultural” or “lack of education” are just using that as an excuse to make the problem bigger than it is. That way, the problem is “just too big” to do any enforcement which is terribly convenient, isn’t it? Do the enforcement, and people will get educated – fast.
Maybe They should lower the price of water in LA county so the Mexicans could take a shower at home and wouldn’t have to have bath day in the river.
I noticed the comment about the Mexicans, sadly, this is more than likely true. My extended family is Mexican so I know how most of them are and the outskirts of Angeles is full of hispanic people. I went last week just to sit next to the river that runs through the canyons and I wanted to shoot the people who left their crap there.–red cups, abandoned sandals, plastic bags–immediately I gathered what I could and brought it up to a huge green trash bin they had there. They ACTUALLY HAD a huge trash bin. I don’t understand the lazyness of people. Earth is so beautiful and I hate that people don’t take the responsibility to keep it that way as much as possible.
This is so sad, I hate when I’m looking forward to a nice hike somewhere beautiful, only to find that it has been destroyed by people that went there to party and have left their trash behind (or tagged). I can’t even begin to comprehend what must be going through these idiots’ minds, how they could possibly think it’s okay to desecrate nature the way they do. Luckily I went to Echo Mountain the other day and brought a bag, just in case there was any litter, and I didn’t need to use it at all. I’m a little late, but perhaps this week I’ll head over to the the JPL area and/or Santa Anita canyon and see if there is any more trash left.
It would be nice if they would just inforce the National Forest Adventure Pass rule. When they first started the pass rule, trash and vandalism disappeared over night. Good people see the need for fees to pay for the maintenance of our national forest. Trash never does. When fees go up trash goes down. It is to bad that it has become politicaly incorrect to inforce rules in certain areas. (A sad day for our country and our national treasures). P.S. When I first started camping in that area it was 25 cents a night to camp.
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