Forest Road Clean-Up Day!

Many of us have ventured into the beauty of our local forests, only to round a corner and be greeted by a burned-out vehicle, dumped building materials or some other form of trash sitting beside the road. It is really a sinking feeling to see our forests treated in this way, but with it come other consequences that we don’t always think of.

You may be wondering why Josephine County Search and Rescue (JoCoSAR) would have any concern about this kind of issue. After all, there are lots of other groups picking up trash for all sorts of reasons, but why burned-out cars on forest roads? It is simple when you see the bigger picture. When forest turnouts have bulky items or sharp nails from burned pallets, SAR has no place to unload rescue vehicles or get out of the way of other traffic. We recently had an incident where the Snow-Cat crew had to back down a forest road for three miles before they could turn around. This creates a direct delay to the rescue efforts, blocks the road to other rescuers and creates a very hazardous situation for those working to remove this equipment.

So, what are we going to do about this problem? On October 14th, Josephine County SAR will be heading up the first “Forest Road Cleanup Day”. SAR has teamed up with members from the Department of Forestry and the BLM to identify those roads and specific locations that have the greatest amount of heavy types of trash. Through this cooperation, four roads have been identified as top priority.

However, removing vehicles is not a simple matter. Permission must be obtained from the governing body that manages the property where they sit, whether it is Forestry, BLM, County, or private land. Legal forms must be processed with the DMV for vehicles with VIN numbers or boats (yes, boats dumped in the forest!) with any identifying numbers. Thankfully, one of our other partners in this effort, Cascade Metal Recycling, will be accepting and processing these cars, Rv’s and other metal hulks for us. Southern Oregon Sanitation has stepped up and will be providing rolloff bins at the staging areas to receive the regular trash that is removed by the volunteer teams in smaller vehicles. Several towing companies have offered wreckers to bring the abandoned vehicles to the staging areas on the main roads, where they will then be moved to Cascade Metal Recycling. The SAR Ropes team will also be using their skills to retrieve materials from areas too steep for untrained volunteers. As you can see, this is not your usual “pick up the litter” effort.

But none of this will be successful without the help of volunteers from our community. If you are 18 years or older, have good work gloves and a desire to bring back the beauty of our forests and possibly save a life, we would love to have you join us on October 14th for this very special day. For details and to sign up, please go to;
https://jocosar.wixsite.com/home/forestroadcleanupday

Josephine County Search and Rescue members are all volunteers that extensively train to give of their time and talents “So others may live”.

Help us clean up our forest roads together, while watching out for our neighbors in the process.

Cary Cound

Event Preview Video here.