Clearing the misconceptions

Carol Nelson's recent letter suggests that King County's grant to Friends of the Trail for trash cleanup on public lands and waterways was not a wise use of taxpayers' money. This view is founded on some unfortunate misconceptions.

Ms. Nelson states that where she comes from, trash cleanup is performed by volunteers. Friends of the Trail is a non-profit organization, and its labor is performed by unpaid volunteers, of which I am one. Grant money is used for gas, insurance, purchase and maintenance of the group's truck and other equipment, occasional contract services for large items, such as car bodies in rivers, and a modest salary for a full-time coordinator who is the backbone of the operation.

Ms. Nelson also criticizes Friends of the Trail's environmental education work with schoolchildren as duplicative or invasive of the province of parents. We wish all parents were as responsible as Ms. Nelson undoubtedly is in impressing upon her children the value of a clean environment, but this is not the case. The huge volumes of trash in our public forests, lakes and rivers are mute testimony to this sobering fact.

Friends of the Trail is picking up where parents have left off. Proactive educational work with youth of today means large amounts of garbage of the citizens of tomorrow that might otherwise be indiscriminately dumped, will be properly disposed of and will never have to be cleaned up.

Friends of the Trail performs a threefold public service in (1) providing people with low-level court sentences an opportunity to serve part or all of their sentences through community service, thus doing worthwhile work for society and reducing the need for expensive new jails, (2) providing ordinary citizens a meaningful way to contribute to the betterment of the community and the environment, and (3) effectively tackling backcountry pollution, a problem that is not adequately addressed either by government or by other civic groups.

Many public lands around Western Washington, such as our own Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie Valley, were de facto garbage dumps before Friends of the Trail restored them to clean and attractive areas for recreation and wildlife. Citizens who properly inform themselves about this organization would be hard-pressed to find a more cost-effective use of the minimal taxpayer funds the group receives through public grants.

Eric Gellert

Snoqualmie