Kenmore’s Scout Troop 582 returned from a three-day hiking, fishing and rock-climbing trip last weekend in eastern Washington, near the Moses Lake area. While there, scouts noticed that many people were using the Seeps Lake area as a place to dump their garbage. Since they had a big open trailer they had used to haul their gear over, they decided to use it to pick up more than a ton of garbage and haul it to the local dump.

According to Assistant Scoutmaster Katy Wilkens, they spent hours picking up old mattresses, televisions, broken mirrors, stereo systems and other items, which were lying near streams and lakes used by millions of migrating waterfowl this time of year. They picked up bags and bags of garbage that had been thrown out of people’s cars. Scouts thought it was particularly interesting that people would drive out of their way to this wilderness sanctuary to dump their garbage, when the local dump is open for free dumping every Saturday.

“What are people thinking when they have to go out of their way to pollute?” commented Eagle Scout Hayden Eriks.

Pictured are, left to right: Thomas Lane, Scoutmaster Duane Mogg, Nolan Bush, Tyler Patrick, Patrick Mogg, Eriks, Alex Renfrew, Grant Goheen and Majid Al-Hadrami.