What a load - to cover

I am writing in reference to the article dated Tuesday, May 20, by Brian Walker titled COVER THAT LOAD. The story details the efforts of the county sheriff's office to educate residents concerning the law requiring loads to be covered on anything that can blow out of the vehicle. The article states that 23 stops were made near the county's transfer station on Prairie Avenue and rural collection sites during the emphasis.

Although I support the sheriff's effort to bring awareness to this misdemeanor, which can draw as much as a $1,000 fine and/or six months in jail, let's be realistic; this infraction is rarely, if ever, enforced.

I am compelled to ask; are the citizens of our community solely required to comply to this law, or is the county itself also obligated to comply? As a 20-year volunteer with the Adopt-A-Highway program on South Highway 95, I can say, with absolute authority, that the largest contributor of trash along our roadways are the transfer trucks themselves that the county has contracted to haul the waste to the Fighting Creek Landfill. All one has to do to verify my claim is follow a truck as it leaves the station and watch the plastic bags, styrofoam packing material, and paper being broadcast from the trailer like confetti from a New Year's Eve celebration at Times Square.

When we first began participating in the Adopt-A-Highway program in 1994, our average number of bags collected during any spring or fall pickup was 13 to 20. Over the years, as the containment netting on the trailers has degraded and failed without repairs, the numbers have significantly increased. This spring we personally filled SIXTY bags on our one-mile stretch from mileposts 425-426, and an additional 47 on the east side of the two mile stretch across Mica Flats adopted by our Mica Flats Grange Happy Family Club. The volume has become so burdensome that their volunteer group is no longer able to allocate a reasonable amount of time to pick it all up, and are forced to do what they can and leave the rest. We have tried to help them by picking up half their section, but it is still not enough. It is disheartening.

It is difficult for us to smile and wave back at the friendly drivers as they pass us working alongside the road, as we watch our cleaned stretch behind us being littered again every time one of those trucks passes by. To say we feel discouraged is an understatement.

Over the years, we have tried in vain to address the problem from its source. We have expressed our concerns with Roger Saterfiel, manager of Kootenai County Solid Waste Management, who advised us that the contractor was responsible. We then called the office of the contractor at the time, who informed us the responsibility lay with the drivers. Once my father followed a driver to the landfill turnoff to point out the trash he was leaving in his wake, and he simply shrugged and said the responsibility lay with the contractor, who owns the trucks.

If the company contracted to haul this trash was held accountable for the litter they spread, by either fines or actually being required to get out there and pick it up, I guarantee you an effort would be made to repair the containment on those trucks. Why can't the netting be replaced with a rigid material, using seals along the frame to eliminate the problem with vacuum? All one has to do is follow a chip truck from the mill to understand the physics of what's happening here. It's not rocket science, and neither is it that complicated to resolve. The problem isn't the defective covers, it's apathy from the management responsible for maintaining their repair.

Fundamentally, we perceive the chain of command as the driver held accountable by the contractor, who is held accountable by the county that hired them, so the buck stops there. What are YOU going to do, Kootenai County Waste Management, to solve the problem of the trash YOU are littering in our neighborhood? Is it unreasonable to expect you to be responsible for the mess you are creating?

We can't say we have confidence anything will be done to rectify this problem. After all, they have their army of volunteers from Adopt-A-Highway, working as free de-facto employees, cleaning up after them. As far as they're concerned, problem solved.

Sherry Mundt is a Coeur d'Alene resident.