Exploded Toilets and other Badlands Debris
The Friends of Dubois Badlands maintains a good relationship with the State lands because the main public access to the Badlands is through a State section of land. A new chapter in the Friends of Dubois Badlands In July I got a call from a’Lisa Hoffmann, the Wyoming State Lands person who oversees the State Land sections and quarter sections in the Dubois area. She had gotten a report of a dump site on the Wyoming State Land section north of the Transfer Station section and north of the BLM WSA on the Dump Road on the way to Table Mountain. I told her I thought I knew what she was talking about from having seen it years ago. She gave me the coordinates and I headed out there. When I had seen the site 8 or 10 years ago, there was a quite nice couch, a large TV and a refrigerator or something. This summer, the couch was gone or had been torched in the interim, the TV was in pieces and the refrigerator was nowhere to be seen. In their place were a dead lawn mower, a car hood, and lots of exploded toilets. A’Lisa had said someone had quoted her $10,000 to clean up the site and replant it I allowed as to how I thought the Friends of Dubois Badlands could take care of the problem. Tim Judson and I headed out there last month and filled the back of his pickup truck to overflowing with a car hood, various other metal objects, and a golf club but we had only retrieved some of the stuff near the road. I went out and collected two exploded toilets last Saturday. So far, our total expenses have been $17.60 for dump fees. On Monday, I was able to convince my neighbor, Mike Morgan, who has a utility trailer and a jeep to tackle another load. We collected the remnants of the huge old TV, the dead lawnmower, and other crap that filled the trailer. Perhaps the most interesting piece was something Tim and I did not recognize but when Mike pulled it out of the ground it is clearly a very well targeted 55 gallon oil drum. It is so full of holes that it actually looks like someone’s modern sculpture. If we could just get it to a gallery in Jackson we could probably sell it for real money. Mike also picked up a jar of Tannerite, an explosive target.
Exploded Toilets and other Badlands Debris
It is clear from the numerous spent shotgun shells and the Tannerite, that what we are cleaning up, is not a dump site but a target practice site used by folks that have no regard for keeping our public lands clean. In fact, I think they picked up their targets, toilets, and old TVs on their way past the Transfer Station.
Anyone who would like to help in the cleanup, please send a note to the Friends of Dubois Badlands email address, [email protected]. If you have a pickup truck that would great. Also, while you are out hiking or even driving around and you see any other dump sites/target practice sites in the Dubois Badlands from Stoney Point to East Fork, please take a picture with location information. There is a pickup truck that many of us saw during the Fence Pull down a steep ravine that needs to be hauled out someday. There is also some debris in the southeast corner of the Kingfisher Wyoming State Lands quarter section that we might be able to take care of next summer.
If while hiking, you see Cheat Grass, Halogeton, or any other invasive non-native plant, please take a photo with location information and send the info to [email protected]. And if you see an unusual plant, skeleton/bone locations, or trail degradation, let us know. THANKS.
Larry Lawver
