The original was sent to James L. Lewis, Chairman, Carteret County Young Democrats who initiated this clean up and we thank him and his group for this fine effort.
—– Original Message —–
From: Elmer B. Eddy
To: James L Lewis
Sent: Monday, July 25, 2005 7:38 PM
Subject: Shackleford Banks, our National Seashore Park trashed
James L. Lewis:
Your original notice in the Carteret County News-Times invited Republicans to join you in your effort to clean up Taylor’s Creek, Carrot Island, The Rachel Carson Sanctuary and Shackleford Banks.
This Republican jumped at the opportunity to get Shackleford Banks cleaned up. I whole heartedly agree with you that this trash and litter problem requires all of us to work together to beat it. I will do anything to get littering stopped!
We cleaned up Sugarloaf Island with the help of the Marines from Cherry Point. We cleaned up the White Oak River in 2003. For five years we have been cleaning up every stream and body of water we paddle.
We would have cleaned up Shackleford by now if we could get there and back with our trash. We cannot paddle to Shackleford and pick up trash and get it back to the mainland in our canoes and kayaks. We will work with anyone who will help us do this to get Shackleford clean. An invasion flotilla of motor boats could do this in a morning.
This is our very own National Seashore Park and it is in a state of disgrace being littered with trash by those who have used it and abused it. You state you hope our joint efforts will encourage people to put the trash where it belongs. In the case of Shackleford, Carrot Island , and Bird Shoals-The Rachael Carson Sanctuary, it belongs back in the boat it came in! “Leave nothing but your foot prints”.
Every boat owner should adhere to this Coast Guard request shown on the second page of this e-mail.(Sorry, I could not get the scanned copy in here. It is a bumper sticker, “about keeping our waters pollution free, WE CARE, PLEASE DO NOT LITTER OVERBOARD, In partner ship with the U. S. Coastguard”.
Every person should pledge to his or her self: “I will not litter”. If no one litters there will be no litter. I have taken a sabbatical leave of absence from every environmental organization I belonged to as, except for the very good specialty goal of each, they ignore or put trash on the back burner.
This doesn’t cut the mustard. They need to include trash in their agenda as nothing they all do can be successful if it is covered with trash. It will still look very dirty and disgusting to the public eye.
Our leaders, in all walks of life, need to us face this problem. Until they get the public motivated to stop littering we will have to live with trash. Our anti-litter laws make littering illegal but they are not enforced and so the public ignores them. This bad practice teaches our children that it is ok to break our laws. It teaches them disrespect for our laws.
Jim, you invited us to help you with the clean up of Atlantic Beach. Just like we cannot reach Shackleford and have any time left to pick up trash, we cannot get our boats to Atlantic Beach.
We will work with you anywhere our canoes and kayaks will go.
Gary Scruggs, is The Newport River Trashman, and a Steward of The White Oak River Basin. He is one of the original Stewards. Our public response was one family of three. Yours was 9 out of thirty expected. The general public did not respond!
All together you say we picked up 50 bags of trash. Yes, this is very good, but there are 1,000 more bags scattered all over Shackleford wherever the trash was discarded.
The public today are very busy dealing with the economic necessities of life plus every thing else they want to do.
Trash and litter is not on their mind except when they are threatened with a land fill nearby!
Maybe we need to make a big pile of our trash collections on the waterfront in Beaufort or on Atlantic Beach. That will get their attention.
Hopefully we can find a way to get the public to stop littering sometime soon. What we have been doing and are doing is a failure. We are ignoring the problem and that is why trash is a dirty, nasty, continuing problem.
In the meantime, can we get the prisoners to clean up Shackleford? They are cleaning up our roads. We know we can get the Marines to do it with the cooperation of all involved. We know they can and will do it if given the proper opportunity and notice. Sugarloaf Island attests to that.
I am sending a copy of this e-mail to Lockwod Phillips of the Carteret County News-Times. I am asking him to consider this a letter to the Editor or however else he may wish to use it to help us to motivate the public to stop littering.
If he can do this we can turn our time and efforts to helping The North Carolina Coastal Federation to restore oysters instead of wasting our very valuable volunteer’s time in picking up other peoples discards.
Thank you Jim for sparking this fine effort to make Shackleford clean for our tourists, our selves and our wild horses. It is our Yosemite. We need to be able to take pride in it. Elmer Eddy
Elmer, The White Oak River Trashman, 101 River Reach Drive West, Swansboro, NC 28584
Stewards of the White Oak River Basin
Please visit: www.whiteoakstewards.org cell phone 910-389-4588
Blind CC to Stewards #1 and #2 and copy to Coastal Carolina Kayakers
To all: Please reserve Thursday for a paddle on The White Oak River from Stella to Hadnot Creek. Join us if you can. More later. Elmer ——————————————————————————————————————————–