In the eastern most portion of Beltzville State Park you find Bauer Creek. This creek is the largest that feeds into Beltzville Lake. There is only one small parking lot in this section and my plan today was from the lot to walk back along Bauer Creek towards the lake and the Preacher's Camp access. Instead, I ended up taking a short path upstream on the creek until it came to a dead end on private property. Then I walked back and spent a lot of time picking trash from around the lot.
From the car the parking area looked fairly clean. After looking on the other side of some brush and down a small bank I found out why. Everything is just discarded over the side. This makes it extremely difficult to get to and pick up.
Done with cleaning up the lot I headed down this path which took me back to Bauer Creek and underneath a bridge that goes over it. In the thick brush that can be seen in this photo I did remove what I could get to, but there was trash that was unreachable.
It was extremely cold out compared to what it has been like in recent weeks. Had it not been as cold I probably would have tried to pull this out of the creek. It is still beyond my comprehension how people can just dump tvs in our waterways. It doesn't make sense.
These are the items just from around the bridge.
Had it not been as cold as it was today I most likely would have left this in the parking lot where I found it. It was full, but the contents were frozen and I knew there was a trash can not far away. By the time I did drive to the can though it had started thawing and a pleasant aroma did fill my car. Luckily it dissipated after the livers were dropped off.
I did not cover that large of an area and ended up with over a full trash bag. The one thing I am finding that I don't like, other than the cold, on these winter clean-ups is the fact that a lot of the recyclables have frozen contents inside. This means I have to thaw the items before I take the items to recycling. I think it will be awhile before I can get rid of these recyclables.
You too can help with taking out the trash! If you get out hiking take a grocery bag with you, give it a second use and fill it with trash while you are out! Every bit helps. You can also help contributing to this project here: Help Fund Taking Out the Trash
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