WAYNESVILLE, Warren County — You’ve just enjoyed a scrumptious picnic at your favorite scenic retreat in Caesar Creek or Cowan Lake parks and you’re looking for a place to discard your rubbish.
Fuhgettaboutit.
Visitors to Caesar Creek and Cowan Lake state parks now must tote personal trash bags along with their picnic baskets under a new state policy that began at those and other state parks on Memorial Day.
The parks need the estimated $5,000 in annual savings to pay for gasoline, spark plugs and similar items just to keep their most basic maintenance equipment running, said Tim Carr, regional manager for Caesar, Cowan and the Little Miami Trail.
How is the new self-policing working so far?
“The first year is the roughest,” he said.
A visit to Caesar Creek Friday afternoon, June 19, confirmed Carr’s appraisal. Plenty of litter was scattered around the parking lot at the beach and strewn along the access road.
Anneka Borgert of Waynesville was toting trash out in a sand pail. She, like many others who commented for this story, said they didn’t know about the new policy.
Signs warning of the new policy aren’t prominently placed at the entrances to the park, but are posted in a beach picnic shelter. “My call on it would be bad policy,” Borgert said. “I’ve noticed excess litter.”
Trash was dumped in two restroom stalls. At the beach’s concession stand, a single trash can was in sight. It carried the warning, “For Customers Only.”
Overall, the beach area seemed to be the most trash-strewn. The boat ramps and the parking areas around them were clean.
Melissa Haller of Middletown, watching her husband, Roger, ride his personal watercraft, predicted the beach and picnic areas would create problems.
Beach visitors Dustin Johnson, 21, of Middletown and friend Ashley Tankersley, 21, of Miamisburg, lost no time in trashing the new policy.
“A big wind will come up and just blow it all into the water,” Johnson predicted. “It’s preposterous.”
Robert Mayer of Middletown, snacking at a picnic table with two friends, said the policy could work. But, he added, “they should always emphasize the environment and keep it clean and usable.”
In March, a state task force reported that Ohio’s deteriorating parks need $500 million to make up for a massive backlog in maintenance.
On top of that, Ohio Department of Natural Resource’s basic missions have been compromised by budget cuts over a decade, the task force said.
State legislators and Gov. Ted Strickland, now wrestling with a $3.2 billion shortfall in the upcoming two-year state budget, have yet to come up with a long-term funding plan to address those needs.
ODNR, which said pulling the trash cans began in 2008, estimates savings of $53,000 annually from the practice at its 30 parks.
Carr said he recognizes the new policy is asking people to change habits. He hopes they’ll adapt. And that’s a lot of somebodies who need to change. In 2008, Caesar Creek drew 2.6 million visitors and Cowan Lake 1.8 million.
Carr said he won’t let trash pile up in parks if visitors don’t cooperate. Stray trash will eventually be rounded up by grass-cutting crews as they make their rounds.
