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Nice little trash magnet Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Trash below the observation deck at Mingus Pond along the Bear Creek Greenway has become an all-too-common sight. Jackson County doesn't have money in the budget to provide regular pickup there, although jail work crews clean the area occasionally. Migrating birds share trailside pond with debris left by passersby By BILL VARBLE Mail Tribune Build it and they will come. Unfortunately, they will bring their garbage. A half-mile south of Central Point and just yards from Interstate 5, ring-necked ducks paddle around Mingus Pond, fattening up for the flight to their northern nesting grounds. Here are red-winged blackbirds singing for prospective mates, tree swallows darting for bug meals, a red-tailed hawk keeping watch from a treetop. Here, too, are whiskey bottles, beer and pop cans, trash. "It's a mecca," says Dr. Alan Frierson of Medford, who often runs along this stretch of the Bear Creek Greenway. "It's heart-breaking to watch the plastic and paper blow into it." The remains of an old gravel operation, the spring-fed pond alongside the Greenway provides habitat for northern shovelers, green- and blue-winged teal, cinnamon teal, pied-billed grebes, American and Eurasian wigeon, black phoebes, various warblers, rails, great blue herons, turtles, muskrats and maybe even an otter. A Crater High School class designed and built the observation platform here several years ago with help from the Oregon Parks Foundation and community and business groups - but nobody provides a trash can and pickup. The county doesn't have money in the budget for regular pickup at the pond, says Jackson County special projects manager Karen Smith. "If you put a can there, it's only good if somebody can empty it," she says. The county arranges for work crews from the jail to clean the area occasionally. "We try to keep on top of it," Smith says. "It almost immediately gets trashed again. You can never quite do enough." The Greenway has few cans because people use them for household refuse instead of going to the dump, Smith says. "They become magnets for all kinds of trash." Other sources of garbage at the pond include passersby, vagrants, a nearby truck stop. "There's a lot more trash there than there was before Pilot was built," Smith says. Pilot manager Chris Gianatassio says his maintenance workers spend 40 percent of their time cleaning up. "They sweep it and pick it up every shift," he says. "Three guys at a time. Some things get blown before they can pick them up. "It's not just truckers. Greyhounds come through, too. I think any high-volume establishment would have some litter." Smith says she's not trying to put the blame on truckers. "There's plenty of blame to go around," she says. Frierson says he sees food trash left on a picnic table at the site. He just wants to know what can be done. "Do we have to wait until somebody is running for office?" he says. The Greenway Foundation's mission is to raise money to build more links in the popular trail, and Smith says the group is already stretched thin. "They've been a tremendous help with the burn restoration there," she says. "But their focus is different." The solution might be for a community group to adopt the site, she says. Or perhaps more people who use the Greenway could pick up trash when they see it. "I know a lot of people who actually do that," she says. "I see folks there every morning walking their dogs," she adds. "They could just take a garbage bag. If they leave it by the trailhead in Central Point and let me know where it is, I'll have somebody pick it up." Reach reporter Bill Varble at 776-4478 or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.