OLD TOWN, Maine — In a shady spot just feet off a narrow dirt road, Maine Game Warden Jim Fahey pointed to a fallen tree and explained the game plan.
First, he’d use his high-lift jack to pry the heavy tree off the debris underneath. Then, he’d haul out the assorted trash, including several pieces of carpet that had become part of the forest floor below.
Then, after that site was all cleaned up, he’d drive a few miles to another spot where inconsiderate people had decided to dump household waste on land they don’t own, and repeat the process.
Around the state, game wardens and rangers from the Maine Forest Service teamed up with outdoor-related organizations on Sunday for the third annual Landowner Appreciation Cleanup Day.
The goal: In a state where outdoor recreationists depend on the kindness of private landowners in order to access their land to hike, fish and hunt, the annual effort is designed to give those landowners a helping hand.
“We’re demonstrating to the landowner that there are people who care, whether it’s sportsmen or the warden service or the forest service,” Fahey said. “It might influence [some landowners who are frustrated with their land being treated improperly]. They might not take the ‘Posted’ signs down, but they might entertain a request for access and view it a little bit differently.”
Warden Rick LaFlamme, who serves as his agency’s landowner relations specialist, spent the day roving around the state, checking on progress and cleaning up sites on his own. He said during the program’s first two official years as a large-scale contest — with clubs competing for Kittery Trading Post gift cards — nearly 500,000 pounds of trash had been collected.
On Sunday, 110 sites were being cleaned up by crews around the state. And on Wednesday, LaFlamme said that 25 of 26 Dumpsters were filled by the end of the day.
Among the “trash” collected were some items people might not expect to find: Four large boats and three campers were removed from the woods, as were hundreds of tires. LaFlamme said a total weight of this year’s collected trash wouldn’t be available until various disposal companies sent out bills for the effort.
After three years, one trend has begun to show up, according to Fahey and LaFlamme.
“We’ve gotten ahead of it to the point where people are scrambling or scratching their heads to try to remember the last place they found items we could target [for cleanup],” Fahey said. “We can measure success that way, [and see] that we’re getting ahead of the problem.
LaFlamme’s data indicates that Fahey is correct.
“Last year [we targeted] 130 sites. The year before was about 150. So we’ve definitely gone down on sites [to 110 this year]. It seems to be working,” LaFlamme said.
Another key indicator that the program is working: In the first year of the cleanup contest, local snowmobile clubs spent a busy day cleaning up sites, filling several pickup trucks in the Old Town area.
This year, the sites that Fahey could pinpoint didn’t require the same number of people to clean up. And along the snowmobile trail corridors where previous dumpsites had been mapped and cleaned in the first two years, club members aren’t seeing any dumping at all.
“Once a pile starts, it’s easier for someone else to justify, [to think] ‘It’s already a pigpen, I’ll add to it,’” Fahey said. “But I’ve also found, when a place gets cleaned up, it tends to stay that way. It’s kind of the old [adage] of leaving something the way you found it or better.”
While cleaning up sites on Sunday, Fahey pointed out evidence that the trash that had been discarded in the woods wasn’t a new development. Carpets don’t rot into the forest floor overnight, and 55-gallon drums and culverts don’t rust into the earth in a single year.
“It’s just like any hunting activity — you’re looking for [evidence of animals] and judging how fresh or old [that] sign is,” Fahey explained. “All the evidence here is that these are old problems that we’re picking up. And it’s important [to clean the old sites] because this will help prevent people from adding the fresh stuff.”
At the Maine Forest Service headquarters in Old Town, a group from the Maine Youth Fish and Game Association unloaded the trash they’d gathered from three dumpsites in the woods.
LaFlamme handed out special “outdoor partner” baseball caps to those who took part, and said the fact that youth club members were pitching in was encouraging.
“All these little tools and programs are really working,” LaFlamme said. “Are we ever going to stop it all? I don’t think so. But hopefully we can educate our youth and continue to get them to set the precedent for the future.”
