Kernville, CA - The Kern River was congressionally designated Wild and Scenic for a reason--it's an amazingly beautiful piece of nature. Rapids attract whitewater rafters during high flows. Throughout the year, anglers visit to soak in the tranquility of the river's splendor. Families escape the hectic pace of the city to camp near this riparian paradise. Trash and other waste on the ground, however, can quickly shatter the peaceful experience of guests to this fragile ecosystem. Over the last few years, many complaints regarding trash and human waste along the river have reached the ears of Forest Service (FS) employees. The Forest Service is listening, and doing their best with a limited budget to counteract the growing waste issue. To comprehend the problem and help keep trash off the Forest, it is important for our visitors to understand how trash is removed and how they can help in the stewardship of this scenic land.

Dumpsters are provided at most campsites for scheduled collection. The FS Recreation department has carefully weighed its budget and made cuts and concessions in other areas to focus on trash collection. Each time a garbage truck lifts a dumpster for collection, it costs taxpayer-money allotted for recreation on the 1.2 million acres of the Sequoia National Forest. In 2012, the Kern River Ranger District spent $48,000 for trash pickup. More dumpsters and more garbage runs per week add to the overall budgetary impact. Currently, dumpsters are collected at least once a week on Friday. Most are collected again on Sunday or Monday. During the summer, the District averages 177 cubic yards of trash removed per week--enough trash to fill three and a half 24-foot diameter (3 feet deep) swimming pools each week. Over the entire summer, this is enough trash to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool!

If a dumpster is overfilled, the garbage truck operator or a campground host must pick up all the excess trash around the bin and throw it back into the dumpster for a second load. A $40 fee for this second load is charged to the FS, and 78 have been necessary so far this summer.

These second dumps are effective, but can come too late. Often by the time the garbage truck reaches an overfilled dumpster, animals and canyon winds have scattered the trash far-and-wide. This creates part of the need for a second type of collection--picking up trash by hand. The issue with overfilled dumpsters contributing to trash on the Forest floor could potentially be combatted with more dumpsters and more dump runs--a real possibility, but also a real cost to the Forest Service.

The second type of trash collected from the Forest comes in the form of intentional or negligent littering. This problem has proven very prevalent where dumpsters are not provided in the dispersed camping areas outside of the named campgrounds. Campers in these areas are responsible for removing their own trash, as the motto, "Pack it in, Pack it out" describes. The impact of this type of trash, and its overall cost of collection are much higher, and much harder to determine. This trash is removed either by other campers with good stewardship ethics, Forest Service employees, or volunteers during river clean-up events; or some of the trash eventually bio-degrades into the environment. Non-biodegradables will sit until picked up, ruining the scenic quality of this Wild and Scenic River. More disturbing is the trash and human waste degrading into the water table--the effects of which have not been measured at this time.

Once collected, the trash outside of dumpsters is either put into a dumpster, or loaded into pickup trucks or "stake-sides" (larger trucks meant for carrying bigger loads) and disposed at the local Kern County Waste Management Transfer Station southeast of Kernville. From April to July of 2013, approximately 10 tons of trash collected on the District was taken to the transfer station by Forest Service personnel. At an average of 225 pounds per yard of mixed waste, this would equal about 90 cubic yards of trash, equivalent to 36 full pick-up truck-beds.

Recreation places other sanitation demands on the Kern River Ranger District as well. This year, to date, the Forest Service has provided over 2000 large rolls of toilet paper for visitor use in vault and portable toilets on the Kern River Ranger District. If rolled out, that amount of toilet paper would be about 70 miles in length (long enough to stretch from Bakersfield to Mojave)! The recreation department has used somewhere between 3000 and 4000 garbage bags already this year. With visitor use and impact at this scale, sanitation becomes an issue for everyone.

Visitation to the area is not decreasing, and with increased visitation comes more trash. Visitors can help the Forest Service maintain this fragile ecosystem in several ways:
?? Use dumpsters provided. If a dumpster is full, please transport the trash to another dumpster nearby to prevent wildlife from ripping open trash-bags and spreading litter.
?? "Pack it in, Pack it out." If camping in a free dispersed site where amenities such as dumpsters are not provided, bring your own trash bags and transport your trash away from your campsite to a dumpster or take it home for proper disposal
?? Do not leave feces on the ground. This is unsanitary and harmful to water-quality in large quantities. Human waste should be buried at least 6 inches deep and 100 feet from a water source. NO HUMAN WASTE should be left on the ground nor buried within 100 feet of the Kern River. Plan these bathroom trips ahead of time or use a portable toilet provided somewhere else along the river. For convenience, some groups rent and bring their own portable toilets for a multi-day trip.
?? Minimize trash while camping. Each camping trip is a good opportunity to take stock of what you brought, assess how much trash it produced, and plan to create less trash on the next visit. There are several recycling stations at campgrounds along the river. Glass, aluminum, and plastic bottles and cans can be separated and disposed at these locations to lighten the load and contribute to good environmental stewardship.

Littering will not be tolerated. Over the 2013 summer, Forest Service officers made thousands of educational contacts, issued hundreds of verbal warnings, and wrote dozens of citations along the Upper and Lower Kern River. These law enforcement and forest patrol officers will continue to cite visitors caught breaking the rules.