Firetower Road (8-June-2016)

I have had a lack of motivation in writing the blog posts and getting out this week. Repeatedly going out and doing these clean-ups and going back to places and just seeing the same thing over and over again just wears you out. I thought revisiting a place where I did a large clean-up last year of an illegal dump site and seeing that what I did had a lasting difference would help me get moving. So I headed over to Schuylkill County and set out hiking on Firetower Rd. Can you guess what the first thing I found along the trail was?...

I really felt like I was kicked while laying face first in a puddle of mud. It was not in the same place that I cleaned out last year, but it was a similar type of dump. This shouldn't happen. This area is owned by Blythe Township and if they just maintained the access points and kept them locked no could do this back on the trails. My next step on this area is to contact the township and see if they are willing to get the access points secured. If they can't or just won't I don't think I will even try to get this pile cleaned up. I put a ton of work into this area last year and to just keep doing it over and over again, when there is no one else willing to act on preventing this kind of thing from happening. That would really just be insanity. I will try to contact Blythe Township and the DCNR who owns adjoining property in the next couple weeks. It would be amazing if we could get this area secured then cleaned up. 

If you look back at my Firetower Road post from May 15th in 2015 you can see what this area looked like before I worked on cleaning it up. I at least was happy to see there was nothing new dumped here. 

Something old and something new. I must have walked by the two-liter on the left over thirty times and never noticed it until this trip. Only the bottom was visible and it is green, that could have been the reason. The deodorant was certainly a newly discarded item. It felt full and I can tell you I do not like the smell of champion. The inside of my pack smells like it now.

With the exception of the new dump I did not find many items along the trail out to the fire tower. It may just be that the trash is currently hidden by vegetation. It will be interesting to see this winter how much accumulated that can't be seen over the summer. 

Then there was this. It is new as well. I do think this would be another thing prevented if the area was properly secured. The fact that people go to this area to shoot doesn't bother me that much. It bothers me when instead of a paper target they use things like glass. This pile too, I won't do anything about until something is done about access at this site.

This would be the biggest problem. When seeing a gate cut like this I kind of understand why the Township gave up on securing this area. In other places people just cleared roads around the gates. Now that there are trail cams there is no reason to give up on places like this. The gates should be put back up and all other access blocked then cameras should be mounted around each gate for the first year at least. Problems like this can be fixed, people just need to care. 

The other side of the loop again didn't have much trash. There were several spots with firework casings, but they are cardboard and I generally leave paper products because they won't take long to biodegrade. 

I had over a pack full of trash by the end. Something really needs to be done about this site and I will do my best in the coming weeks to start it at least. 

The highlight of this hike was seeing a juvenile Northern Water Snake in a small vernal pool eating tadpoles. 

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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