Grateful to the landowners that allow them to cross their property, on March 24 members of the Alna Snowmobile Club gave back to the community with a massive clean-up effort of a dump site off Rabbit Path in Alna.
“It has been a disaster for years,” club member Jeff Hunter said about the dump site that contained everything from tires, furniture and old bottles to new plastic bags of trash including cardboard muffin box mixes to yes, even a kitchen sink.
The Snowmobile Club lugged off over 200 tires, three couches, a sofa chair, a couple of car seats, a couple of sinks, and 11 television sets. In total, they picked up and delivered 4540 pounds of junk to the Wiscasset Transfer Station, who waived the usual fee for the good Samaritans.
“We did it in an effort to make a difference and give back to the landowner,” Hunter said. “Once trash like that is found on a landowner’s property, signs go up, locks go up and gates go up, and it ruins it for everybody… As you can tell I’m passionate about snowmobiles.”
Perhaps little Ava Dorsey said it best, as she stood on the edge of the road and watched her family’s boom truck lift raft after raft of tires out of the ravine off the Rabbit Path, Dorsey was overheard saying “why do people do things like that?”
“It is one of my pet peeves, people dumping stuff,” Hunter said. “When I found the debris I knew I couldn’t do it alone.”
About a dozen club members pitched in Saturday in the clean-up effort, including Nicole Ezzell, Paul Ezzell, John Shorey, Matt Brown, Hunter, Matt Dorsey and his boom truck, Larry Hannah, Jeff Verney with his dump truck, Jay Verney, Eva Dorsey, Bill Seigars and Colt Seigars.
Jeff Shorey made two trips to the transfer station with his dump truck, Ezzell three with his dump trailer, and Hunter a couple of trips with his pick-up truck.
“John Shorey was instrumental in arranging for the boom truck from M&R Dorsey. Dorsey is a business member of the club,” Hunter said.
Hunter estimates the club put in 50 man-hours in their clean-up project. After cleaning up the debris, club members had to sort the trash at the transfer station.
Alna Store donated coffee and donuts, which was greatly appreciated by the work crew.
In addition, Ezzell used his trailer to clean-up and lug off about a half ton of shingles that had been dumped at another landowner’s site on Friday.
“I don’t know the exact weight of the shingles. We cleaned them up just as a gratitude thing for the landowner,” Hunter said.
“If landowners get mad about trash they’ll post their property,” he said. “It is a double edge sword. We have done other clean-up projects under the radar, but this was just too big.”
Club members found evidence at the dumpsite that they believe indicates a commercial garage dumped many of the tires there. Valve stems were found in numerous tires, which could indicate the tires were put there by someone with a tire changer. The volunteers also found several oil filters in a clump and various car parts.
“We have to do something about our disposal system. When you buy tires you pay $2 for tire disposal. Some people are too cheap to pay the $2 and take their tires home and dispose of them,” Hunter said.
“Someone out there is collecting the $2 fee and dumping the tires. Someone with a garage is flying under the radar. I can tell you my radar is up,” Hunter said.
Hunter said he has been told there is another dump site on Golden Ridge Road in Alna that contains numerous computers. “I would like to throw a challenge out there for another organization to tackle the Golden Ridge Road,” Hunter said.
