Ukiah Valley Creeks Cleaned Of Trash, Encampments Saturday

Dozens of truckloads full of garbage were cleaned from multiple creek beds in the Ukiah Valley Saturday during the annual Russian River Cleanup.

Much of the efforts were organized by the Mendocino County Resource Conservation District, which had volunteers meeting at Low Gap Park the morning of Sept. 28 before sending groups out to multiple sites to clean litter and other debris from local waterways that may be dry now, but will soon deliver any remaining hazardous waste and other pollutants into the Russian River once the rains return.

Perhaps the largest clean-up at one site was undertaken at a sprawling encampment along Ackerman Creek, just a few miles north of the Ukiah city limits, that was organized by Redwood Valley resident Adam Gaska.

One of the volunteers helping Gaska clean the site, which housed dozens of people in dozens of makeshift homes formed out of plywood, tarps and other scavenged materials, was former Mendocino County Supervisor John McCowen, who described the encampment’s inhabitants as creating “literally tons of trash to haul out, and decimating the riparian habitat by constructing earthworks and building structures” that were both alongside and inside the creek bed.

“The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, at the direction of Sheriff Matt Kendall, has been very helpful in the last few days in moving people out, but a lot of the environmental damage and pollution could have been avoided if they had responded months and months ago,” McCowen said.

When asked Monday to respond to that assertion, Kendall said he is hampered by a “staffing shortage like everyone else is these days,” but also pointed to a lack of cooperation from state agencies such as the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, which he said should be the agency that is citing people for polluting state waterways rather than his deputies.

“Politics has become king, and it has become ‘unpalatable’ to clean out encampments,” Kendall continued, explaining that he does not have enough deputies to deploy to all of the county’s encampments, clear them, and then keep them clear. “It feels like we’re just shoveling sand against the tide.”

At a certain point, Kendall said, it was decided that a large portion of people on the fringes of society were “not responsible for their actions. And if they are not responsible, who is? If no one else is claiming responsibility, then the government must. But so far, no one has been willing to stand up and take responsibility.”

When asked if and how his office intends to keep the recently cleared site along Ackerman Creek clean, Kendall said he will do what he can with the limited resources he has to “keep people out of there, and I’m hopeful that Fish and Wildlife will take some initiative, because I don’t have the deputies to constantly police the area and address the environmental degradation.

“It is a massive issue,” Kendall continued, describing the problem, both across the county and the state, as being created in large part “by not holding people accountable for their actions, and instead deciding that (polluting the environment and other destructive actions) are acceptable behavior. And instead of raising the bar (of how people should behave toward themselves, toward other people and toward the environment), we are continually reaching down to lower the bar of what is acceptable.”

An email seeking comment from the CDFW communications staff was not responded to as of press time Monday.

(Ukiah Daily Journal)