Bass Lake, Shaver Lake again left trashy on July 4th. Solution? Ban Fresnans | Opinion
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- Bass Lake and Shaver Lake shorelines were again overrun with trash after July 4th.
- Local agencies added dumpsters and volunteers, but cleanup demands still surged.
- Frustration grows over enforcement limits and visitor disregard for public spaces.
We are a community of litterbugs. Unable and unwilling to celebrate the summer’s biggest holiday in outdoor settings without leaving behind piles of trash.
To inveterate litterbugs like ourselves, public awareness and shaming are largely ineffective and only go so far.
The only remedy is a complete and total ban. From now on, Fresno residents (plus folks from Clovis and Madera, just to be safe) should be prohibited from picnicking at Bass Lake and Shaver Lake on the Fourth of July.
Keep us all out. Ban both the guilty and the guilty by association. Use tasers and facial recognition software, if necessary. We simply cannot be trusted to do the right thing, which in this case simply means picking up after ourselves and not leaving behind a giant mess for others to clean up.
We are, in a word, disgusting. Or in two words, disgusting pigs.
This modest proposal came to me after seeing photos and video footage posted on social media of the carnage left behind last weekend along the shorelines of two Sierra reservoirs within an hour’s drive of Fresno.
What did the photos and video show? Paper plates, plastic bags, aluminum cans, glass bottles, cardboard boxes, styrofoam containers and sandwich wrappers strewn everywhere.
And that’s just the start.
“Trash is one thing,” said Madera County Supervisor Bobby Macaulay, who paddleboards at Bass Lake. “But what really gets under people’s skin is the human waste such as dirty diapers and toilet paper that gets left behind. Plus people who have campfires outside developed recreation areas and leave without putting them out.
“It’s really problematic.”
This year, in anticipation of the messy hordes, the Bass Lake Chamber of Commerce made use of a $2,014 grant to place 10 additional dumpsters around the lake in high-traffic areas.
By the end of the weekend, all of the dumpsters were full or nearly so. That’s the good news. The bad news is many day visitors couldn’t be bothered, leaving volunteers from the Sierra Presbyterian Church’s Jubilee Program to clean up after them.
“We’re always happy to welcome visitors and truly appreciate the community’s efforts to keep the lake clean over the July 4th holiday weekend,” said Melissa Jones, president of the Bass Lake Chamber of Commerce.
“Still, the volume of trash was more than we could handle alone. We invite everyone to pitch in – use the dumpsters, pack out when needed, and help us keep Bass Lake beautiful for all to enjoy.”
Similar story at Shaver
It was a similar story at Shaver Lake. Except this year, Southern California Edison (the utility company that owns 20,000 acres surrounding the lake) opted to hold the annual fireworks show on Wednesday night rather than July 4th (which was a Friday) in order to reduce crowds and traffic.
That decision, made with input from local residents, resulted in a less trashy shoreline than in previous years, according to SCE spokesperson Gabriela Ornelas. Nevertheless, the cleanup effort still required Camp Edison staff and volunteers to spend a total of 50 hours picking up litter.
“We work hard to keep the lake beautiful, clean and safe for people to recreate,” Ornelas said. “And we would appreciate the public helping us with that.”
The responses from SCE, the Bass Lake chamber and Macaulay are far more diplomatic – and rational – than mine. I suggest that’s because the local economies in the Fresno and Madera mountain communities depend on “flatlanders” spending their money.
Which explains why none of them were eager to endorse my somewhat facetious “ban Fresnans on the Fourth of July” idea. But Macaulay, whose district includes Bass Lake, has heard such suggestions before including setting up a guard station to charge admission fees for shoreline access and writing tickets to litterbugs.
“It’s very difficult for law enforcement to issue a citation for littering,” Macaulay said. “We hear that a lot. Why don’t you fine those people? It’s much more difficult than you might think to do it legally.”
There’s really only one solution. Until we “flatlanders” demonstrate we can celebrate the Fourth of July without trashing nearby mountain lakes, we should spend the holiday in a location more fitting to our collective tastes.
The nearest pig sty.
