PSW, BPA clean up

Black plastic trash bags lined Highway 200 at random intervals Friday morning Oct. 15, as fourteen junior high and high school members of Lincoln School's chapter of the Business Professionals of America joined the Ponderosa Snow Warriors to cleanup the borrow pits along Highway 200 from the Lincoln Ranger Station to the Landers Fork Bridge.

Divided into several groups, the clean up crew scoured the roadsides for trash thrown from vehicles, blown out of trucks or trailers heading to the Lincoln Transfer Station or left behind in the wake of vehicle accidents.

Beer cans, plastic water bottles, fast food containers, busted bits of car and truck bodies, even a picnic table were among the sundry bits of trash and detritus they came across as they picked their way along the highway.

Snow Warriors President Forest Mercill said he believes this was the first organized cleanup along that stretch of highway in about three years and credits the students for making it a success.

"It's pretty awesome" he said. "This would not have happened without them. The BPA kids are as cool as they come."

Mercill said he contacted BPA adviser Laura Allen-Bullis, Lincoln High's Business and Technology teacher, about having the group help with the project partly because a BVD story mentioned the students need for community service hours. In April, BPA members conducted a BPA Cares project involving a cleanup project along Highway 200 in Lincoln.

"They try to get involved in as many community service projects as they can," Allen-Bullis said

"It just made sense" Mercill said, noting that partnering with BPA helps the kids fulfill the community service requirements and helped offset low turnout by PSW members. Mercill admitted timing the cleanup on a Friday morning made it difficult for snowmobile club members who work to make it out, while Lincoln School's four-day school week meant the students were available.

"It's a win-win. Every (Lincoln) club should be happy about it," he said.

With only three hours for the cleanup, the crews couldn't gather up all the roadside trash along that stretch of road, but Mercill hopes to be able to do another roadside cleanup in the spring. "I'd like to do it twice a year," he said, adding he will try to coordinate with the BPA kids again.

"This is how a town should take care of itself, right?"

The highway cleanup was the second cleanup project by the Snow Warriors this month. Several members turned out Oct. 9 for the second Lambkin Park cleanup this year. "We needed a second shot at the title to finish it," Mercill said

One of the main projects for the park was to remove some of the stumps from the trees that blew over during the big windstorm that knocked over trees around Lincoln last year.

"We know we're gonna hit 'em with a snowmobile or we're gonna hit them with the groomer, so we might as well get them out of the way."