Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012, February 25, 2005, Page 12, Image 12

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342-5191
2825 Willamette
Eugene, Oregon
Lauren Wimer | Photographer
Student Learning Program Coordinator Steve Mital works with students to find and map
illegal dump sites in Lane County.
Student research
team locates 200
illicit dump sites
The University's Illegal Dumping Research Team
discovers and maps cases of garbage on public land
BY KARA HANSEN
NEWS REPORTER
University junior Kelsea Feola was
looking from the window of a car
when she spotted something unusual
in the woods. Senior Gregg Shetterly
noticed something from the corner of
his eye, too. They stopped the car
and peered over the edge of a slope
in the Coburg Hills to find heaps of
trash littered down a steep hill.
“It was the entire hillside,” Feola
said. “There were appliances, car
casses, trash, barrels and TVs.”
Feola and Shetterly were doing
fieldwork for the University’s Illegal
Dumping Research Team, a class that
tracks and maps sites where people
have illegally dumped garbage on
public lands. The group has recorded
about 200 illegal dumping sites this
term according to Mark Neff, the
team’s graduate teaching fellow.
As part of the Environmental Stud
ies Service Learning Program, the
team of three undergraduates and
Neff, accompanied by a coordinator,
works with the Oregon/Washington
Bureau of Land Management to help
determine whether clean-up pro
grams for illegal dumping in Lane
County are effective.
Feola said the hillside they found
was a “shoo-in” for level five, the
worst severity rating for illegal dump
sites. The team has found three or
four level-five locations in the three
12-13 hour shifts they’ve spent in the
field winter term, Neff said.
The dump sites have consisted
mostly of household garbage and
trash left in places where people have
been shooting things or “partying,”
Neff said.
The group also found tires, broken
appliances and cars, he said, but it
stays away from anything that looks
dangerous, such as large barrels that
could have housed chemicals for
methamphetamine production.
The team has^headed out at 6:15
a.m. on several weekends, following
maps of the Coburg Hills while look
ing for tire tracks that veer from the
road and for trash visible from the
street. It hopes to finish mapping the
area with one more trip but may need
to do more this spring, Neff said.
The group hopes to launch an In
ternet database spring term with the
maps they generate that will allow
the public to see where dump sites
are and volunteer to clean them up,
Neff said. The idea is loosely mod
eled on a Michigan program where
volunteers have helped remove ille
gally dumped trash from more than 1
million acres of public land since the
program began in 1991.
Neff said the purpose of the Uni
versity’s project is to “help encourage
people to take responsibility” for
public lands and to raise awareness
of a problem that many people don’t
realize exists.
Shetterly agreed that while many
people enjoy activities in rural areas
and in the wilderness, they may not
know about illegal dumping.
“The places you go hiking aren’t
going to be messed up,” Shetterly
said. “You don’t realize there’s this
public land out there that’s being
trashed. It’s being used, but not for
what it’s there for.”
karahansen@ daily emerald, com
IN BRIEF
Ayyam-i-Ha celebration
to benefit less fortunate
Baha’is around the world this
weekend will celebrate Ayyam-i-Ha,
a five-day celebration that precedes a
19-day fasting period.
Ayyam-i-Ha is a festival of hospi
tality, charity and service to the com
munity. The festival is called “Inter
calary Days” in English because the
festival usually falls on the five days
left over from the rest of the Baha’i
year. The Baha’i calendar is made up
of 19 months with 19 days each.
The period of fasting that follows
the celebration involves praying and
abstaining from eating or drinking
during sunlight hours for the last Ba
ha’i month, which is 19 days long.
Ayyam-i-Ha focuses on helping
people who are less fortunate mate
rially and people who aren’t Baha’i.
People are encouraged to bring
canned food donations or blankets
and coats for Lane ShelterCare.
Eugene’s Baha’i population will
celebrate Ayyam-i-Ha with a party
that is open to the public on Saturday
from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the Chase
Village clubhouse. There will be car
nival games, square-dancing, cook
ing, decorating and refreshments.
— Amanda Bolsinger