Filthy facilities reflect poorly

Visiting public boat ramps makes me question the value of public access, and I remind myself that slobs are merely a visible minority.

Exhibit A: The Sylamore Access on the White River near Mountain View. Piles of bagged and unbagged trash greet your eyes on arrival, and woe to a poor soul that needs to use the portable lavatories. They look and smell like kennels at the most squalid puppy mill. It is not an exaggeration to say one near needs to be in a hazmat suit to enter those things. They are unsuitable for use by civilized people, and they leave an indelible image for people who visit from out of state.

If you believe it’s unfair to define an entire state’s image by a random experience at one boat ramp, let’s visit a few other places.

A few weeks ago we detailed the amounts of organic human waste on the Buffalo River’s gravel bars. A few commentators that missed the point wrote in to complain not about recreational desecration of the nation’s first National River, but that these observations were an attempt to exonerate a hog farm.

Steel Creek, Kyle’s Landing and Tyler Bend recreational areas are top-notch campgrounds on the Buffalo River unless you visit on a summer weekend, especially a holiday. Slobs utterly defile the bathroom and shower facilities with biowaste.

The same is true at Long Pool Recreation Area on the Big Piney River. The last time my family camped there, Miss Laura and I filled a trash bag with cigarette butts, aluminum can tabs, glass shards and other items from our campsite alone to make it safe for a toddler to play.

Snow Access on Crooked Creek is another example. I was so happy when the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission opened this area and provided access to a new section of this world famous smallmouth creek. Now, it often looks like a communal latrine. At least the toilet paper piles serve as navigational buoys.

You’ll see the same thing on the trails leading to the waterfalls at Haw Creek Falls Recreation Area, and also at the camp areas at our wildlife management areas.

Abuse isn’t confined to concentration areas, like campgrounds. A few years ago I hunted a remote sunflower field on the second weekend of dove season at Galla Creek WMA with Alan Thomas of Russellville. We filled our backpacks with spent shotgun hulls, shell boxes, drink cans and snack wrappers. We were able to carry out more trash than we initially thought because other hunters left their plastic Wal-Mart bags in the field.

For years, George Cochran and Roger Milligan have conducted an annual volunteer cleanup in August at Bayou Meto WMA. They remove less trash every year because the cleanup has helped foster a spirit of ownership among the volunteers, all of which are ardent duck hunters.

I do most of my hunting and fishing on public land and water, but I often visit private hunting clubs around the state. The difference between private and public property is glaring. People that pay money for membership in a private hunting and fishing establishment keep things clean and tidy. It is expected, and high standards are enforced.

These expectations extend to the way they conduct themselves in the field, and in the way they manage the game and fish on their club’s premises.

Club members that lease hunting land observe the same high standards. The landowners demand it contractually, but club members view their club dues as investments, and they generally treat the property with the respect they would if they owned it.

I want to believe that most of the people that use public hunting and fishing resources and their access facilities treat them respectfully, as stewards rather than mere consumers. Two hundred people could use a boat ramp and leave no trace, but one or two can foul a place up bad enough to reflect poorly on an entire community.

There is a sense that people tend to mistreat property they don’t own, but every Arkansan owns our public hunting and fishing resources and access points by way of a statewide, one-eighth percent conservation sales tax. If you buy beer, cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, corn chips or soda, you’ve bought a stake in the boat ramps and their privies. You have an even greater stake if you’ve bought a fishing license.

It could be, as Mrs. Thrasher, my second-grade teacher at McDermott Elementary used to say, that some people just ain’t got no home training.