KC Counts:
Tell me about some of the efforts thatyou'veundertaken to clean up the region.
Ranger James Croft:
Yeah, so with my duties,I'mresponsible for patrolling the areas around the Las Cruces district, mostly rural areas, but we have some urban interface areas. And one of the areas thatI'veidentified as an illegal dumping site is south of Lordsburg between Banner Mine Road and Old Animas Road. AndI'vefound several dump sites out there that obviously needed attention.
KC Counts:
Try to give us some perspective in terms of the amount of refuse you're finding.
Ranger James Croft:
So, the area we patrol, there's shooting areas, recreational shooting areas, and in this area specifically, there was just lots of household trash, appliances dumped, tires, all said and done. We, for the first part of the project, which we isolated 6 sites, I'm going back out there this week, to isolate some more, but so far, we've hit three of those sites and we've dumped somewhere between 15 and 17 gooseneck dump trailers and 52 tires, maybe a dozen or 15 large appliances, refrigerators, washing machines, and that sort of stuff.
KC Counts:
Where do you take all that stuff?
Ranger James Croft:
We work really well with the Hidalgo County Transfer Station. They waived all the fees for us, which was really nice of them, and it's part of their community. So, it was really good on their part. I talked to the county commissioners and the mayor, and they all agreed that they would waive those fees for us. So, we, fortunately, that area is right, kind of, next to the dump, so we were able to just take them right to the landfill, and they hauled them off for us.
KC Counts:
So, what is your message to folks who are out recreating, just residents? Obviously, people who are taking appliances out there and tires out there aren't just going out for a day of shooting, right?
Ranger James Croft:
Well, sometimes yes. That area is, I've been in the area for about 12 years and I've noticed that site has grown and people will drag out whatever they can to recreational shoot at it, which is a problem in and of itself.
KC Counts:
So those are targets?
Ranger James Croft:
Correct, yeah, for the most part. But there are isolated dump sites where I think people generationally have just dumped out there. And so our message to everybody is that, we're there to be good stewards of the environment, to clean up the area. A lot of that stuff gets into the groundwater. It goes with the runoff, really contaminates. There's a lot of hazardous material out there. We found a bunch of oil cans full of oil and such. So we want to get that word out. It's a ranching community. The cattle get into it. It's very dangerous for the cattle. They'll end up losing cattle every year to cattle getting into that area. But our message is, you know, that one of the rules that we've set up as a society is to keep our neighborhoods and our areas clean. And that's our message is just, you know, if you want to go out and recreationally shoot, that's100%. I'm behind that. You know, it's one of our rights. We can go out and do that. Just clean up after yourself. Don't leave anything behind. No trace is kind of what our motto is.
KC Counts:
How big of a team do you work with when you're doing that?
Ranger James Croft:
This time, we tried to get some volunteers. We worked with the Border Patrol Explorer Program. They're a youth organization that works with the Border Patrol here on the southern border. And we had some of them show up and help us out. And then we had three of the BLM fire guys that were able to help out and then myself. So the bulk of the work was done by the fire guys and myself with the Border Patrol Explorers assisting. That being said, we've had a lot of, based off of the work we've done and the social media that's gone out over it, I've had a lot of inquiries how they can help out. And so we're getting some church groups and some youth organizations that are going to come out and help us on our following - on the remaining 3 sites. We're going to try to identify some more so that we can get as much cleaned up as we can with as much help as we can.
KC Counts:
How many phases of this project are there?
Ranger James Croft:
This project here, we split it into two phases. We had the holiday, 4th of July, to kind of split us up over it. So we did the first phase, which was we managed to tackle three of the sites and hauled off all that garbage that I was speaking about. But the following phase is going to be Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and we're just going to kind of build it from there. I'd like to kind of evaluate this at a semi-annual or annual basis and continue to remind folks, about the importance of keeping your areas clean.
KC Counts:
Recently, we talked with the Miss America's Teen New Mexico Jordyn Campion, whose community initiative is called No Tread Left Behind. You happened to hear that interview. And so there was a little bit of simpatico there. One of the challenges that she had was finding organizations to work within order to dispose of all of the tires that she was collecting in the desert. So, for people who are interested in doing that, how do you go about finding those places where you can dump all that stuff?
Ranger James Croft:
So the way that we in the BLM work, is if it's tied to public land, we'll take care of that for you. All we need to know is there's, you know, very few of us. So sometimes the community has a way better visual idea of what's going on in the community. So if they can reach out to the Bureau of Land Management, we'd be happy to go and take that. I've been in contact with Miss Campion's mother and she's going to try and we're going to work with her and see if she can't come out on this next iteration and help us get some of that taken care of and I'm going to work with them identifying sites and if you know we can we're going to work with we're going to be able to haul that off for her through the Bureau of Land Management.
KC Counts:
How nice! And maybe one of our reporters can tag along so we can show everybody what's happening.
Ranger James Croft:
That'd be awesome.
KC Counts:
All right. Well, thank you so much for coming in to talk about it. What else is important do you think that I haven't asked you about? In terms of what messages that you want to leave our listeners with today.
Ranger James Croft:
I just like to let people know that we fall under the Federal Land Policy Management Act and it's a federal law that you can't dump on public land. It is a citable offense. You know, we try not to go that route. I think a lot of education goes a long way. So sometimes just talking to people and saying, hey, if you're out shooting, just clean up after yourself. Don't shoot bottles where glass is going to go everywhere. Take your targets down, bring them with you, throw them in the garbage. There's plenty of garbages around. Or contact us and we'll find a way to help you get rid of any sites that you have. So I think the biggest thing is education, let people know and just reach out to us. We're here to help and we want to keep our environment as clean as we can.
KC Counts:
All right. Well, James Croft, thank you so much for sharing thisimportant informationwith us. Great having you.
Ranger James Croft:
I appreciate it. Thank you for the time.
