What We Have Here

Is a failure to communicate. This is a sub trail to the Appalachian trail which it joins in another quarter mile. It is a walking trail. There is a nice spot to go swimming (Housatonic River) where the rock shelves out and kids frequently jump off the rock in the background. More and more it has become popular for many people from out of town to treat it as a picnic spot. This is the result. What is notable is the garbage is not just not thrown all over, as it would be in NYC but piled in one spot. Jurisdiction is shared by the US Park Service, the local utility that has hydro plants, and the town. There is only one state trooper for the town who can't be everywhere. I suspect we need more signs in Spanish since obviously the ones in English are not understood.

What a pitiful shame.Since we do not respect the property of others as in years gone past,and since we do not use tall enough consequences these days,this type behavior is becoming accepted practice.There are ways to correct this but I am sure they would offend some sensibilities. Now that IS unacceptable. Mike

That's totally disgusting. Most parks are "carry in carry out" now a days.With the amount of trash laying there you would think that a little more patroling is needed,that's not just one days trash. I'm really surprised that some else using the park hasn't reported these filthly *censored* pigs.

Notice that the garbage is mostly piled to the left of the sign to not hinder access to read it. That pile is just from this weekend. The utility company does all of the cleanup as well as a lot of trail maintenance.

Local people never ever threw their garbage there. It has become popular for out of towners. What will probably happen is that a kid will drown and that will be the end of a local swimming hole for the kids along with a prohibition on picnicking. There have been drownings in the rapids area but here the river slows down. A bear waded across just to the right of the picture where the river widens and gets shallow enough.

Sam you are right as you frequently are. I think there is more to the story though. Locals do not trash there because they don't picnic there; they picnic on their own land in their own back yard. The trail is for walking, camping, and fishing. The hikers on the trail are fastidious about not fouling their own nest. Pristine forest is why they are there. For most of them it is almost a religion to preserve the trail.

But other people have different motives. They don't have their own land but want to get together with friends and family like everyone else with few places to do it. So they utilize a piece of public land for that purpose and drag in kids and carriages and loads to eat and drink to an area that is unsuited for and not intended for that purpose. I don't blame them and can understand how confusion can arise from the lack of disposal facilities. It just is not suitable for picnicking yet I would hate to see interference by government which is probably inevitable if the trash continues. Again a few spoil it for the many just as the sloppy hunters will probably have you denying use of your property in the future.

franco b wrote:I suspect we need more signs in Spanish since obviously the ones in English are not understood.

Sam, why do you jump to the defense of the perpetrators; is that some kind of liberal mantra? He wasn't talking about your backyard, but his.
You can't possibly wonder why this exasperates your fellow citizens. Multiply that attitude by ten to the tenth and you have the results of liberal policies nationwide.

The same thing happened at Split Rock Reservoir in northern NJ. We had a jumping off spot for decades. Nobody littered, and the res was not exactly open to the public. Then they opened it up to fishing boats with electric motors only. A lot of kayakers would also come to the parking area and small boat launch they provided.
Then the thugs from the inner cities started coming out with their ghetto attitude. They blocked the access road that goes over the dam. Near that dam is a stone shot tower that dates back to The American Revolution. They started spray painting graffitti on the rocks that had remained pristine for decades.
They had to clamp down and drive off the ghetto miscreants with heavy fines. My young liberal buddy said he considered the graffitti to be "art" and it diodn't bother him. Then he copped an attitude at the local officials like thay were the bad guys when they clamped down. Then he moved to Maine to get away from NJ
I was there one day when ghetto punks came to the spot, I was ran off the place that brought so much joy and recreation for years. What was I going to do?
I haven't been back since.
Law abiding citizens are being displaced by these kinds of activities; that have been allowed and even encouraged by complacent liberal policies. Illegals are being emboldened and encouraged to trash everything. Just my take on this.

There was swimming hole in Meshoppen PA that was on private property, there wouldn't be a lot of people there when I was a teenager. As I got into my younger adult years it got to be a circus with garbage everywhere. They finally started citing people...... no more swimming hole.

But you throw ALL hunters under the bus because you made a poor choice and allowed PEOPLE to come on your land with no oversight. The fact that there were beer cans speaks to what kind of "hunters" they were. Besides, up here in Maine they are worth a nickel!

Kevin

And that's how I bought my first car. A 1949 Mercury.

franco b wrote:Is a failure to communicate. This is a sub trail to the Appalachian trail which it joins in another quarter mile. It is a walking trail. There is a nice spot to go swimming (Housatonic River) where the rock shelves out and kids frequently jump off the rock in the background. More and more it has become popular for many people from out of town to treat it as a picnic spot. This is the result. What is notable is the garbage is not just not thrown all over, as it would be in NYC but piled in one spot. Jurisdiction is shared by the US Park Service, the local utility that has hydro plants, and the town. There is only one state trooper for the town who can't be everywhere. I suspect we need more signs in Spanish since obviously the ones in English are not understood.

Update:
The street is now plastered with no parking signs and there is now a Park Ranger present.

I wonder why this type of dumping is more prevalent in liberal leaning states? CA, NY, MA, etc ...

I have a few ideas. Morals, or lack thereof, for starters.

When I lived in CA I used to see families of Mexicans dump dirty diapers right in the street in front of their homes. The same groups would congregate in large hordes at the state parks, and literally (or, LITTERally) trash the place. Was so bad nobody would visit. The tourists were scared away by all the gang members lounging on top of the picnic tables, and doing burnouts in the parking lot in their low riders with fart-cannon exhaust systems. Nice place, CA is ...