A mess is a mess…even for federal agencies
By VERNON ROBISON
Social media channels frequently light up around here with sad photos and indignant reports about people who have dumped yard waste or other garbage out in the desert. Some member of the public, seeking solitude in the beauty of open federal land, suddenly happens upon such a mess and justifiably becomes disheartened. He/she posts it to social media. What follows is a flurry of tongue-clucking commentary, publicly shaming the anonymous befouler of otherwise pristine public space.
And rightfully so! There is no excuse for a person making a mess like that. It is a shameful, selfish and despicable deed to dump in the desert and expect everyone else to just live with it.
It is also a serious legal offense. Dumping garbage or yard waste on public lands can come with serious penalties including heavy fines, probation and sometimes even incarceration. Sadly, when it comes to federal agencies, what is good for the goose seems to not always be good for the gander.
About a year ago, on this page in his column “No One Asked Me But…” Dr. Larry Moses mourned the death of hundreds of once healthy, green palm trees at Blue Point Springs and Roger Springs at the Overton end of Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
He revealed that these trees did not die of natural causes. Rather they were poisoned by National Park Service biologists who had apparently decided that these beautiful springs, both of them sacred heritage spots to many local families, are their personal laboratories to practice their own brand of mad science. In any case, these biologists had declared the palms guilty of being an invasive species on National Park lands. The sentence: Death! So it was written, and so it was done….tragically.
But that was not the end of the story, nor the full extent of the atrocity. Just like when you and I cut our lawns, trim our hedges, rake our leaves and prune trees in our yards, poisoning palm trees that way creates a lot of organic waste. You and I must find appropriate ways to remove and dispose of that waste right away. Hopefully we find a better way than illegally dumping it onto public lands. But those rules, and indeed state and federal law, don’t seem to apply to the Park Service.
After this mass killing, these trees – their dead stumps, their fibrous bark, their limbs, their brown dry leaves….everything – have all been allowed to just lay out there where they died. Right now this organic waste litters an otherwise beautiful spot in the National Recreation Area. What was once a lush, green place for the public to visit; a tiny jewel in the desert with miraculous clear water and cool shade; today looks like a stark landfill for yard waste.
What is the justification for this? No doubt there are all kinds of reasons: lack of funding, lack of manpower, lack of equipment, lack of time, lack of a contractor willing to hazard the environmentally-delicate project, lack of caring – and of course, there is always that standard excuse nowadays for everything: “Due to COVID.”
It doesn’t matter how anyone tries to explain it away. In view of the magnitude of the current mess sitting out there, any explanation rings hollow. There is no conceivable excuse for the current pitiable state of this beautiful natural spot.
When I stopped by Roger Springs a few days ago, there were cars in the parking lot with license plates from Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and, of all places, Connecticut for heaven’s sake! These people are likely driving right through Moapa Valley for their first (and perhaps their only) visit to Lake Mead. It is a poor reflection on our community that they stop at this attractive spot to and are met with this atrocity. As a local community member; as a citizen of the U.S.; I am embarrassed by it. We all should be. It is inexcusable!
Anyone else, when doing a landscaping job of this magnitude, would be required to have a solid plan for the immediate removal of all the organic waste. A contractor who left a mess like this for months on end – nearly a year actually – would be severely fined, have his/her license revoked or worse. For most of us, dumping in the desert is a serious offense. Why is the National Park Service not being held to the same standard?
