What a Mess! : Illegal Dumpers Plague Michigan’s Pristine Forests

RACO, Mich. —  It’s springtime in the woods of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and here’s the view:

A couple of soggy, soiled mattresses are slumped against a dented washing machine, their faded yellow stuffing showing through gaping holes in the fabric.

Strewn nearby are a rusty set of bedsprings, two deep freezers, two refrigerators, a water heater, battered easy chair, color television with broken picture tube, and other castoffs partially buried under what remains of the snow.

“What a mess,” U.S. Forest Service Ranger Joe Hart sighs, gazing at the unsightly heap in a clearing near Raco, a former logging village a few miles south of Lake Superior in Chippewa County.

It’s soon to get worse as temperatures rise and the snowpack melts. That’s when people once again will sneak into the woods and deposit loads of worn-out furniture, appliances, household garbage and other rubbish.

“It’s just repulsive,” says Chris Orlando of Mount Pleasant, nearly 200 miles south of Raco. She and other members of a group of four-wheel-drive vehicle owners regularly clean dump sites they find while exploring the Au Sable State Forest.

“You come out there to save your sanity, go fishing, relax, enjoy the outdoors any way you can, and there that stuff sits.”

The trashing of Michigan forests creates not just eyesores in the midst of beauty, but environmental hazards.

Toxic liquids such as paint thinner or refrigerator coolant seep into ground water. Wild animals get caught in wire, step on broken glass or eat harmful plastics.

When hazardous materials such as lead-based paint or asbestos are discovered, a licensed contractor must remove them. That can cost the government up to $2,000 each time, says Orlando Sutton of the Forest Service office in Escanaba.

“It’s money that could be used toward opening a campground or maintaining a snowmobile trail,” says Sue Alexander, a Hiawatha National Forest spokeswoman in Rapid River.

The problem has been going on for as long as anyone can remember. But it appeared to worsen after the state’s Solid Waste Management Act was enacted in 1989. The act’s tough anti-pollution standards for landfills put hundreds of substandard local dumps out of business.

Since then, state and federal officials have teamed with outdoor enthusiasts in a campaign to halt the littering and clean up illegal dumping sites. How successful they have been isn’t entirely clear. No one knows how much junk is out there, and statistics can be misleading.

Example: In 1991, volunteers picked up 1,204 cubic yards of trash in Michigan woods; in 1995, the total was 3,000 cubic yards.

At first glance, that would suggest a dramatic increase in dumping. But this five-year period also saw state and federal cleanup efforts shift into high gear. With more people looking for illicit dumps and helping clean them up, it’s logical that more trash would be collected.

One hopeful sign is that much of the trash that volunteers are finding appears to have been discarded many years ago, says Ada Takacs, project manager for the Department of Environmental Quality’s Adopt-a-Forest program for the Lower Peninsula.

“The progress reports people turn in tend to talk about older trash,” Takacs says. “So even though more gets picked up every year, it doesn’t necessarily mean there’s lots more dumping.”

In times past, dumping was largely the product of ignorance, said Ann Wilson, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Natural Resources. People figured that there was no harm in hauling an old piece of furniture or a few tires to the woods, or leaving behind their garbage from a weekend camping trip instead of taking it home.

In some cases, the sites actually were recognized as the township or county dump.

“All of those old ‘dumps’ are legally closed, although we find that some habits die hard,” Wilson says. “Those who used to dump their trash in a certain location every Saturday for years still want to go to the same place for the same purpose.”

Tougher landfill standards have made it less convenient to get rid of bulky or toxic refuse legally. Still, there are 64 landfills in Michigan that accept household waste and 39 that take construction and demolition debris, which people often need to get rid of in springtime, when home improvement projects get underway.

And there are 53 transfer stations, where people can take virtually any kind of trash, which is shipped to the appropriate recycling or disposal facility.

But some people will not take the time to haul trash to landfills and pay their fees when it’s so easy to sneak into the woods. That brings up another reason that dumping remains a problem, one that officials hate to admit: Chances are dumpers will get away with it.

The state has abundant woodlands and a vast network of two-track rural roads, many cut by loggers decades ago and seldom used today except by snowmobiles and off-road vehicles.

“You look at these piles and think we’d be able to catch these folks,” says Don Mikel, a Forest Service ranger in Sault Ste. Marie. “But with nights, weekends, the huge territory, thin staff . . . it’s very hard to do.”

Hart, based at the Forest Service office in St. Ignace, is more blunt: “It’s like hitting the lottery.”

Although catching people in the act is rare, officers sometimes get tip-offs. Or they might sift through a garbage bag, find a bill with someone’s name on it, confront the person and win a confession.

Fines for illegal dumping on federal land range from $250 to $5,000. On the state level, a law enacted two years ago authorized fines ranging from $100 to $5,000 plus additional civil penalties, such as impoundment of vehicles used for illegal dumping by repeat offenders.

The law is to expire next year, although the Legislature is considering a bill to make it permanent.

In the long run, the answer is to educate people and change their attitudes, Wilson says. That’s the goal of the Michigan Coalition for Clean Forests, which brings together state and federal agencies and groups representing business, environmentalists, law enforcement and others.

Formed three years ago, the coalition has developed a slide program, brochures and other materials to get the word out. There also are two “trash teams” that organize volunteer cleanups.

The “Adopt-a-Forest” program puts groups in charge of keeping specific areas clean. They removed 60 tons of scrap metal and 200 freezers and refrigerators, among other trash, from state land last year.

Tom and Billie Briggs of Royal Oak were put in charge of volunteer cleanup in Mackinac County after complaining to the Forest Service about trash near their hunting cabin north of St. Ignace. In the six years since, most of the county’s about 30 known sites have been cleaned.

“It’s very offensive to me that some people have so little respect for nature,” Tom Briggs says. “I think it’s a small minority of bums that make it bad for everybody.”