Keep It Clean

Last week, a Waitsburg resident walking his dog north of town spotted about a dozen bags of leaves dumped by the side of the Touchet River down from the old mill site.

It isn't the first time waste has been found out and about in our communities. Last year, we took to task the individual or individuals who dumped the remains of several deer, pigs and even a sturgeon by a culvert on Mill Race Road.

Another local resident finally took it upon himself to clean up that illegal dump. In the case of the bagged leaves by the river, city crews rounded them up after the resident walking his dog brought them to the city's attention.

A few years ago, construction debris was dumped in a ditch in Columbia County, but owing to the fact Dayton is a small town, someone recognized which home remodeling project it came from and the dumper was urged to round it up and quick.

Fall, a time the rain of leaves and wind-blown branches never seems to end, is a good time to remind residents of the Touchet Valley that Waitsburg and Dayton have plenty of free programs and resources available to away any excuse for the distasteful practice of illegal dumping.

Yard waste poses a potential environmental health problem because of the widespread use of pesticides in lawn and tree care and the persistence of the residue of these chemicals in plant tis- sue. Burning it causes air quality and breathing problems.

At the same time, we don't want to overstate the point. It's also worth pointing out that the incidents above are isolated cases of wanton pollution in our communities.

Most Waitsburgers and Daytonites take advantage of the green waste and other local programs to keep our local environ- ment clean.

City Manager Randy Hinchliffe said illegal dumping isn't common in Waitsburg. Dayton City Clerk Trina Cole and Co- lumbia County Public Works Director Drew Woods said the same about the practice in their jurisdictions.

"It's been reasonably quiet," Woods said about the need to round up waste.

We don't have the problem the state has on its trust lands, where more than 200 illegal dumping sites were found in 2010 alone.

This is in large part the result of well-managed and well-used waste management programs. In Waitsburg, for instance, resi- dents can drop their bagged, boxed or bundled leaves for free at the city shop across from Preston Park from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Already, contractor Basin Disposal Inc. has hauled off three large dumpsters of leaves so far this season.

The City of Dayton is just wrapping up a campaign of three days (Nov. 21, Nov. 28 and Dec. 5) when Basin Disposal picks up bagged leaves curbside.

"We've had an amazing number of people take advantage of that," Cole said. "Our programs are really used, which helps us meet the goal of keeping Dayton clean."

The state's Department of Ecology supports some of these efforts with grant money. In Dayton, it helps fund (together with the county and the city) an anti-waste burning program through which crews pick up garden waste every week and take it down to Steve Martin's Columbia Compost every week April through October.

The city itself has an additional fall and spring yard clean-up program for curbside yard waste, though that effort is separate from the leaves collection days in November and December. Waitsburg also has yard waste clean-up days.

All this leaves one persistent nuisance in our communities: litter. Any walker or runner on Bolles Road or Mill Race north of Waitsburg can tell you the shoulders regularly collect beer bottles, beer cans, plastic bags and so on.

Columbia County has a similar challenge, which is why it hires young adults every summer to round up the stuff from the side of county roads, Woods said.

This all begs the question: Is it really that hard to keep your beer can in the car when you're done with it and recycle it at home. Better yet: Is it really worth risking a DUI or littering fine?