Forty-three members of the Camping Coyotes and Cactus Bandits, local campers and recreational vehicle enthusiasts, showed up at the Las Vegas Bay Campground recently for their annual litter pick-up.

The group, regular users of the Lake Mead National Recreation Area campgrounds, consisted of mostly couples with some children and guests included.

Together they spent in excess of 225 hours filling more than 110, 30-gallon plastic bags of trash and picked up some odd things too.

“We found a large oil pan that needed two men to carry and a large wall locker that required four men to move," said Earnestine Bronson, conservation co-chairman for the Nevada Family Campers & RVers. They also picked up an automobile muffler, four large pieces of carpeting and some tires.

Explaining why the participate in these annual cleanups, Bronson said, “We, as volunteers and users of park facilities at Lake Mead NRA understand the need for cleanliness around the campgrounds and we’ve organized this cleanup at Las Vegas Bay for the past several years.”

Noting this year’s success was the best ever, she said the group has already planned for the next cleanup, the third weekend of 2002.

“All of us appreciate the opportunity to help keep Lake Mead NRA clean for future visitors,” she said.

Bill Dickinson, park superintendent, was awed by their commitment of approximately five and a half-hours apiece. “This degree of support for our anti-littering campaign is spectacular,” said Dickinson. “Our vision of making Lake Mead NRA the premier inland water recreation area in the west can never be accomplished unless we have citizen groups like the Nevada Family Campers & RVers help us out like they did this year and in years past.”

Dickinson said clean ups are a regular part of activities at the lake and groups are always volunteering to help-out. The next large-scale cleanup is scheduled for March 24 at 9 a.m. at Government Wash for the Great American Cleanup. Interested businesses, individuals and groups may signup to volunteer by calling Shannon Swann at 293-8985.

Bronson would love to see the day when clean ups won’t be as important as they are today. “If everyone who visits Lake Mead NRA would just spend one percent of their time picking up after themselves, this would be a clean park.”

Lake Mead National Recreation Area is a unit of the National Park Service.

For further information, please contact:

Bert Byers
Public Affairs Officer
Lake Mead NRA

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