KUNA, Idaho — The Idaho Army National Guard is partnering with BLM and the Birds of Prey NCA Partnership to host their second trash cleanup of the year, this time on National Public Lands Day. The event will be Saturday, October 5th from 10 am to 1 pm.
- The event is open to the public and will take place along S. Pleasant Valley Road, where the large power lines cross the road, (about 13 miles south of the airport).
- Water and lunch will be provided for volunteers.
- You can either sign up or just show up to Saturday's event.
- You can find more information about the event here.
(Below is the transcript from the broadcast story)
The Idaho National Guard is partnering with BLM and the Birds of Prey Partnership to host their second cleanup, on Public Lands Day this year.
"We had about 27 volunteers come out. With that one we had four dumpsters, we picked up about 83 tons of garbage," says Charlie Baun, the Manager for the National Guard's Conservation Branch.
He tells me this time around they'll have more dumpsters and hopefully more volunteers, but they're still seeing illegal dumping.
"Within about a week or two we actually had a couple of the sites we had already cleaned up already, actually had garbage back on site," says Baun. "I think one of the big issues is the rise of population of the Boise Valley."
He says a use study of the area between 2019 and 2024 showed a 37% increase in public visitation.
"Some people will go out there and they'll see "oh somebody dumped their garbage" so they say okay, well apparently it's okay to do that and they'll dump their garbage. The big thing though is 90% of the people actually do the right thing," added Baun.
He and his team went out and GPS mapped each trash dump site and just on the north side of the area, they found 262 individual sites. They did a similar mapping in 2012 and only found 32.
"Illegal dumping actually builds up over the years and so we have a significant number of areas that have illegal dumping all over the place that we're trying to clean up, that's to balance the natural resources out there," says Baun.
But, the National Conservation Area isn't only used by the public, it is home to the Orchard Combat Training Center used by the National Guard.
"It is truly a gem for training in Idaho for all of our soldiers not just here in Idaho but for nationally people come here from all over the nation to come here and train," says Col. Kyle Carpenter, who oversees the Environmental Management Office for the National Guard.
"These are public lands, so it's there for the public. We train on there as the military, but you know it's a public resource that we just want to make sure is in the best condition possible. So, we're doing our little part to help make the desert a better place," says Lt. Col. Eric Sharp, the Base Operation Manager for Camp Orchard.
