07/28/06 BLM cleanup

This spring and summer the Bureau of Land Management teamed up with Keep America Beautiful by conducting public land cleanup events in Jerome, Ada and Madison counties. BLM Environmental engineer Karl Gebhardt says they hired a contractor in the early spring to remove tires that were scattered over several miles of public land west of Caldwell. GEBHARDT "Have one little area that may start up and then other people see it and assume that it's okay. Then we have the other folks and this happens to us quite a bit, where people that maybe don't want to pay the high cost of disposing of hazardous materials puts that kind of waste out there too." In April the BLM, the South Idaho Off-Road Association and volunteers, about 50 in all, cleaned up tons of trash and debris, and 250 tires along the north rim near Twin Falls. In Ada County a 16-man prison crew filled a 20 cubic yard dumpster with trash they picked up on a stretch of road south of Boise. 200 volunteers turned out last month for the Madison County cleanup west of Rexburg where fences also went up to prevent further dumping. Check out the Keep America Beautiful website, www.kab.org. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott