 ELIZABETH FISCO Courier & Press Hunter Popp, 5, the son of Allen Popp, president of the Boonie Riders 4-Whell-Drive Club, rolls a tire that was dumped on the railroad tracks near Gentryville, Ind. He rolled the tire to ajunk pile where members of the club collected trash early Saturday to be hauled off the illegal dump site. |
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GENTRYVILLE, Ind. - Boonie Riders 4-Wheel-Drive Club members were on the backroads before dawn Saturday, but their attendance wasn't just about having fun. Club members were out to clean up longtime illegal dumping sites on Pigeon Switch Road. The goal was to get in and out early, so there would be time for fun later.
Stars were fading in the morning sky when a line of Jeeps and pickups pulled off the road at a railroad crossing. It was so dark that two men drove their Jeeps to the top of a pile of gravel and used their headlights to illuminate the first dump site.
"It makes me mad to see something like this," said Rich Reisz, the club's environmental director, as he stared at a collection of old appliances, furniture, car parts, rusted-out burn barrels and assorted debris dumped on a level area near the railroad crossing.
"On the other hand, it gives us something to do on Saturday morning besides watch cartoons."
The Boonie Riders waded into the weeds and dragged junked items into a central pile, which was to be picked up later by a front-end loader.
One of the more eager trash collectors was 5-year-old Hunter Popp, son of the club's president, Allen Popp.
"He was up and in our room at 3 a.m.," Popp said. "He was scared to death he was going to miss trash day."
As the morning light grew brighter, people moved outside the area that was lighted by headlights and began searching ditches and woods.
By the time it was bright enough to see well, most of the trash at the crossing dump had been piled up and part of the group had moved farther west, to a dump by a bridge over Pigeon Creek. This one was more challenging.
Towing cables were needed for a couch that was buried in mud. The couch disintegrated, and the men pulled the pieces out and threw them on the pile. It became funny, after a while.
Reisz pulled something from a pile of discarded tires and waved it over his head. "Evidence!" he said. "Anybody who'd throw away their own license plate is crazy."
The group found a personalized Illinois license plate. "It shouldn't be too hard to track this guy down," Reisz said. Everything the men and women picked up is headed for Pike County, where it will be sorted and recycled or put in a landfill.
A little after sunup, the groups were finished and back at the crossing, ready to load trash. At 8:30 a.m., a front-end loader and dump truck - donated by Evrard Construction in Chrisney, Ind. - began collecting the trash piles.
"We started this as part of the club's participation in the Indiana Adopt-A-Highway program," said Greg Mauzey, former vice president.
"We wanted to show that people who drive 4-wheelers aren't all bad. We're also cleaning a 2-mile stretch of U.S. 231 between Gentryville and Dale, but that's just picking up, nothing like this."
Popp said the club started in 1998 and already has nearly 50 members.
"We planned this as a family thing," he said. "We do club trail rides, campouts, car shows and parades.
Club information and pictures are online at www.BoonieRiders.org
February 24, 2002 [from the Evansville Courier & Press]