THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606290076
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY JOHN-HENRY DOUCETTE, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: 117 lines
THE U.S. FISH and Wildlife Service began its effort to stamp out illegal dumping at the Great Dismal Swamp Saturday and it didn't even have to dip into a $10,000 grant set aside for that purpose.
Volunteers made short work of a dump site off Route 17 in Chesapeake June 22, braving mosquito-choked woods, swamp muck and a copperhead snake that had found a home in a discarded tire, to help make the swamp a little less dismal.
There are five dump sites on the 107,000-acre refuge packed with car tires, appliances and plastic bottles. The service hopes to have them cleared by the end of the summer.
The volunteers removed more than 120 car and truck tires from the first area, which is located on a nine-acre plot of land called the Gornto Tract. Deputy refuge manager Cindy Britton said it had been a popular dump for at least two years.
``It's really infuriating to see,'' said Britton. ``People come out and dump, and they think they're doing a little bit. But obviously it piles up.''
Frank Williams of Drum Creek helped take down the pile.
The 65-year-old retired custodian and commercial fisherman is a lifelong hunter who moved to Virginia from New Jersey last year with his wife.
Williams is a man who loves the woods. The back yard of his childhood home had been a place where nature brushed civilization, where he could look out the window and see animals.
It became a parking lot.
Crowding and industry pushed him from New Jersey. The encroachment he has seen in his lifetime has made him appreciate the importance of a place where nature can remain in its natural state.
And where he can participate in a hunt for white-tailed deer or birds.
So he volunteers his time to the refuge.
At 54, Ralph Keel of Virginia Beach has worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service for three decades. While 45-year-old J.E. ``Radar'' Raynor Jr. cut tires from the underbrush with a machete and tossed them into a small clearing, Keel, sweat soaking through his jumpsuit, tossed tires up to the truck when it finally backed in.
There Joe Davis, a retired naval officer, corralled them with a metal hook. Muck from the tires overflowed the bed of the truck, sending a stream of brown liquid down the driver's side.
On one Keel-to-Davis relay, muck sprayed off a spinning tire.
``Didn't mean to get your white shirt messed up, Joe,'' Keel said.
The white shirt, short-sleeved and unbuttoned, seemed the least of Davis' worries as he hooked another tire and dragged it to the back of the bed.
Davis, who is also a master gardener, had a simple reason for volunteering.
``I like it out here,'' he said.
That is a sentiment shared by Radar, a lifelong Chesapeake resident who has volunteered with the refuge for about four years.
White-bearded Radar knows his way around the outdoors.
When the volunteers disturbed a copperhead snake occupying one discarded tire, he moved forward to get a good look as the snake, one of three poisonous varieties that populate the swamp, slid away.
Radar keeps moving throughout the volunteer effort: That's the secret to keeping the mosquitoes away, he said. He recalled times the mosquitoes would get so bad that he could see the stripes on their sides as they came in for a landing.
Of course, Radar said, the mosquitoes at the swamp aren't anything compared to the swarms in Alaska.
Has he been to Alaska?
``No,'' he said, ``but I read Alaskan Magazine.''
Nature has given him years of pleasure, be it in magazine articles describing insect swarming practices in the Klondike or through his boating treks on Lake Drummond, the swamp's main body of water.
Will Haas, a retired IBM employee who now lives in Zuni, has also volunteered at the refuge for four years. At 63, he is an avid recycler sickened when he sees ``all kinds of stuff'' dumped carelessly.
He volunteered to give something back to the land. He believes in leaving things a little better than you find them.
He said, ``They're not making any more land.''
He is glad the refuge has some money in its back pocket to clean the sore spots, but wishes dumping didn't occur in the first place.
Illegal dumpers don't have to pay the fee a landfill charges for proper disposal of tires, but they make taxes paid when they purchase tires less useful.
``That tax a person pays when they buy a tire goes toward proper disposal,'' said Keel. When the government ends up spending on clean-ups ``the tax money doesn't go as far as it could.''
Pat Cuffee lives with her husband and two children in Deep Creek. She said she makes it out to the refuge about twice a month to hike and enjoy nature.
``The trash ruins the natural beauty here,'' said Cuffee.
She, like the other volunteers, came to remedy that.
While Saturday was a good effort, Britton said, the work is beginning.
There is another dump site in Chesapeake, at a ditch near Deep Creek.
There are two dumps in Suffolk, one off Lamm Avenue and one off Jericho Lane.
The greatest clean-up challenge may be a site along Route 158 in North Carolina, at the Weyerhaeuser Ditch near where the route intersects with Weyerhaeuser, what Keel calls ``a real eyesore.''
In addition to discarded tires, the site has several major appliances, including refrigerators that the refuge may have to remove Freon from and stoves that may contain asbestos.
The first clean-up was a small step, said Britton. The last four will require more planning and will probably dip into the clean-up grant.
``It's going to take some serious preparation to get to them,'' said the deputy refuge manager. ``The site on 158 is right along the highway. We may not be able to use volunteers for safety reasons.''
And just because a site is clean, doesn't mean it won't attract more dumping.
The access road that leads to the site cleaned Saturday was once blocked off. Dumpers went around.
Britton said there will probably be another barricade built.
Keel said, ``Then they may just dump it over the barricades.''
``We just don't have any idea who's doing it,'' said Britton. ``We need more eyes and ears on this side of the refuge.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photos by Steve Earley
[Four photos of people cleaning up illegal dump sites in the
refuge.] by CNB