New restrooms installed at Buttermilk area
Agencies join forces to promote sustainable recreation
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“A year from now, you’re gonna weigh more or less than what you do right now.”
– Phil McGraw
Bears will still be crapping in the woods but climbers and hikers in the Buttermilks will no longer have to thanks to new restrooms that were officially opened on Thursday.
Buttermilk Country is an iconic destination in the Eastern Sierra Region and has seen increasing numbers of visitors in recent years, straining existing recreation infrastructure while presenting opportunities to improve the visitor experience and conserve natural resource assets through engaged recreation management.
The Buttermilk Infrastructure and Recreation Initiative was identified as a priority project during the
Sustainable Recreation and Tourism Initiative planning process completed in 2021 by the Eastern Sierra Sustainable Recreation Partnership.
The Eastern Sierra Council of Governments received a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to advance the project in two phases: installation of a double vault toilet facility installed in partnership with Inyo County and the Inyo National Forest; and second, a conceptual recreation planning initiative focusing on the interconnected nature of recreation activities in the project area and the documentation of needs and gaps for future recreation infrastructure improvements.
The restroom was installed in October in partnership with the Inyo County Road Department and the Inyo National Forest and the “ribbon” cutting for the facilities took place Thursday.
The planning initiative has included several public workshops held during 2023 and will be published in early 2024.
More information can be found at www.escog. gov.
During Thursday’s ribbon cutting, Second District Supervisor Jeff Griffiths related the challenges that had to be overcome to get the toilets in place.
Griffiths said when he was on the Bishop City Council some 15 years ago, a lady from the
Bishop Senior Center said the light in the senior center parking lot was out and she felt unsafe. Griffiths, still unfamiliar at the time with how government actually works, found out it wasn’t going to be as easy as he initially thought.
“Los Angeles Department of Water and Power owns the land, Southern California Edison provides the power, it’s a city of Bishop park, Inyo County funds the senior center – I found out why things take so long in government and how many government agencies it takes to change a light bulb.”
The situation with the Buttermilks restrooms was similar, Griffiths said, in that it involved the Inyo National Forest, the Bureau of Land Management and Inyo County, which maintains the road to the area.
“So now we have a different question – how many government agencies does it take to put in a toilet?” Griffiths said.
Griffiths added that this specific project was only in the works for a couple of years, which is
“lightning speed” when it comes to government.
On hand for the occasion were Fourth District Supervisor Jen Roeser,
Inyo County Chief Administrative Officer
Nate Greenberg, Eastern Sierra Council of Governments Executive Director Elaine Kabala, and John Wentworth, with the Mammoth Lakes Town Council, along with some other officials from different agencies.
Griffiths said the installation of the restrooms was part of the Sustainable Recreation and Tourism Initiative, which includes input from multiple stakeholders and agencies from Inyo, Mono and Alpine counties.
He said the goal of the initiative is to come up with ways to balance the land and resources that need to be preserved and the “flood of tourists” that have been on the rise in recent years.
“We have public agencies that are underfunded,” Griffiths said. “How are we going to maintain this dramatic increase in tourism that we are seeing? Maintain the area that we love? Manage the tourism and hopefully use that tourism for our economic benefit throughout the region?”
Griffiths said a long list of potential solutions has been created through the Buttermilk Infrastructure and Recreation Planning Initiative.
The first phase included the installation of the new toilets. The second phase will include conceptual recreation planning focusing on the interconnected nature of recreation activities in the Buttermilks and the documentation of needs and gaps for future recreation infrastructure improvements.
The Buttermilk Infrastructure and Recreation Planning Initiative is being completed in partnership with the Inyo National Forest, Bureau of Land Management, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power and Inyo County.
The initiative is funded by a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.
For more information, visit escog.ca.gov/buttermilk.