Posted on 11/10/2023 6:33:48 AM PST by Red Badger
LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Lake Mead’s blue waters and striking landscapes are a desert jewel in one of the most visited national recreation areas in the United States and it shows. Everywhere you look, you will find litter. So far this year, volunteers have removed 27,000 pounds of trash on and around the lake.
Trash found at Lake Mead. (KLAS) Ken Kotora is one of those volunteers and he has been cruising this lake for more than 30 years. He calls Lake Mead the best lake in the world. Sadly, others don’t treat it that way.
“It’s disgusting. People don’t care and they just leave their trash and it’s a bad thing,” he said.
Kotora volunteers his time driving volunteers around the lake to help pick up trash. He captains “The Oz” boat which stands for Operation Zero, one of the lake’s many efforts to help stop litter. He’s been helping since he retired from the City of Las Vegas in 2016.
National Park Ranger Anna Blalock and volunteer Ken Kotora examine trash collected from a Lake Mead beach. (KLAS) Park Ranger Anna Blalock helps run the volunteer program at Lake Mead. She coordinates groups of four to six people to pick up trash at the lake. Each visit results in nearly 500 pounds of garbage collected.
“We bring volunteers out to one of these coves to pick up trash for an hour or so and as a way to say thank you, we take them to see the Hoover Dam,” she said.
Volunteers come out in the spring and fall but in recent years the number of volunteers has dwindled from 4,000 a year prior to the pandemic to around 1,000 a year now.
Less volunteers means more garbage on the lake which can pose a danger to animals and humans.
PICTURE GALLERY AT LINK............
“Broken glass is a really big risk to wildlife and humans. We don’t want folks or wildlife stepping on broken glass. We also have fishing lines so that can get tangled up in the ducks and vegetation,” Blalock said.
Some of the strangest things they have found include an old Nokia phone and lots of boat cushions and boat seats. But some things they can’t remove.
“Anything that is over 50 years old we cannot throw away. So, a Coors can someone threw the side of their boat in the ’70s, unfortunately, we are not able to remove and we see a lot of that.”
Blalock said the reason is because those items are considered historical and are on public land which is protected by law. As the water level has decreased in recent years, some previously sunken boats have resurfaced. Currently, there is no plan to remove them.
Katora tells 8 News Now he plans to help clean up his beloved lake as long as he can.
“I sure love to see the lake getting cleaned up, especially around the beach areas. I also enjoy the enthusiasm the volunteers bring. They are really excited about it,” he said.
Volunteers make up just a small part of the team that helps remove trash but they have a big impact. Other efforts by the park include paying crews which costs the park $800,000 a year.
If you are interested in volunteering to pick up litter at Lake Mead, there are a few different opportunities. There are also other volunteer opportunities. You can find them all at this link.
Let us kick some ass! How about searching every vehicle that enters Lake Mead Park? Charge the visitor for every can, bag, bottle, box, anything that could be discarded. Assume all will be left behind. Charge enough money to pay someone to clean it up. This would take an initiative on our next voting ballot. Since the park is federal, I am not sure if that works?
Nice to meet a fellow Nevadan on freerepublic!
Mexicans are world class litterbugs. Yes, they’re (mostly) hard-working, but boy are they filthy. In Chicago they’ll detour down a residential alley and drop bags of trash — esp. soiled diapers — out the car window.
Our country is a filthy mess under Democrats, pretty simple.
I was driving on a side road behind an old pickup when…wham! A Coke can came out their window and just missed my car. At the next stop sign pulled up beside them because they were turning right….yep! Mexicans…or whatever.
I'm in northern NH and snowmobile in northern NH and VT, and explore logging roads and class 6 and 4 roads in NH, VT and ME in the summer.
I have a Skidoo Expedition and Unimogs, so I have room for trash bags, which I add trash to at every stop.
The amount of trash thrown out on the trails is appalling.
On the main roads, you can't walk 2 steps without stepping on a cigarette butt, and before the road crews cleanup there is trash everywhere.
The penalty for littering needs to be raised, perhaps confiscation of vehicle, a year of picking up trash, etc.
In our little town, they think the library dumpster is their free dump. Last week someone just couldn’t get their slop into the dumpster so just dropped it on the ground next to the flap. South of Texas freeloaders mostly (have seen them in person!)...
Empty trash cans were everywhere, yet the hippies attending it dropped their trash on the ground wherever they were. It was almost impossible to put a foot down without stepping on their trash. The theme of the fair was organic and hydroponic farming, solar and wind energy, etc.
I went there to see Buckminster Fuller.
Contrast with Rush Limbaugh’s “Dan’s Bake Sale”, where it was spotless afterwards.
I sure believe that.
PM.
Liberals destroy everything they touch................
STUPID RULE!
An old tire, an abandoned stolen car, a skeleton, could all be 50+ years old!..............
I just have relatives there. I live in Florida, and tourists are just as bad, but we enforce our litter laws. Glass of any kind is not allowed on our beaches, and we have lots of trash cans up and down the beaches........
I believe it. The worst litter I have seen anywhere in the U.S. was in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was awful. You had to wade through litter in parking lots of grocery stores, shops and restaurants. And this was in decent neighborhoods.
Grocery stores and drug stores didn’t have plastic bags and charged shoppers for paper bags, but somehow, plastic bags were strewn all over the landscape as well.
Unless they get 2 or 3 points for making the basket, they ain’t interested................
I have been to Mexico.
We are starting to look like Mexico, for some odd reason...............
“Anything that is over 50 years old we cannot throw away. So, a Coors can someone threw the side of their boat in the ’70s, unfortunately, we are not able to remove and we see a lot of that.”
= = =
Antiquities Act in action.
So, If I knock off some old timer, over 50yo, and dump him in the lake, he must be left there?
Apparently!.........................
Sign of the times.
Never used to be that way.
Yep.
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