Highway trash piles up after programs halted

Cy Ryan and Ed Koch

Monday, Aug. 28, 2000 | 11:42 a.m.

The Nevada Department of Transportation, facing mounting complaints of increasing trash along the highways since the suspension of two major cleanup programs six months ago, is developing a plan to mop up the problem.

The plan includes short-term solutions like using four temporary NDOT employees and one supervisor to pick up the big stuff and prisoners and youth offenders to clean trash -- but not in dangerous areas like medians. The department is looking at a possible long-term solution of hiring a private trash pickup firm at no cost to taxpayers.

Trash along the state roads in Southern Nevada has been piling up since March, when a Clark County youth offender highway trash pickup program was suspended after six teenagers in a cleanup crew were killed. Shortly after that, the state's Adopt A Highway program also was dropped.

The state Transportation Department has not received a lot of formal complaints, Director Tom Stephens said. "But a problem exists."

"We have seen an increase in trash especially near Apex," Las Vegas NDOT spokesman Bob McKenzie said, referring to the area along Interstate 15 between Craig Road and the Apex landfill. "Elsewhere, things could be better."

McKenzie said the long-term solution of hiring a private firm is in its early stages, noting that there are several companies nationwide that do such work through corporate sponsorship.

"They would find a corporation like a major hotel that would sponsor a stretch of road and the company would keep it clean, so it would be free to taxpayers," McKenzie said.

Cities like Boston and Seattle and states like New York, California and Connecticut already use such agreements, he said.

Meanwhile, the temporary solutions to the trash dilemma are being instituted.

The NDOT cleanup team, concentrating on Apex, is removing only major items, but not plastic bags, scattered paper or drink containers.

Republic Disposal Services of Southern Nevada, which operates the dump, has not been asked to help fund the effort, spokeswoman Lee Haney said.

Two weeks ago, the state transportation department signed an agreement with Washoe County to allow youngsters in the juvenile detention hall to work clearing up the highways in that area. Those juveniles will work only behind guard rails or barriers.

Calling it a "model agreement," Stephens said he hoped to work out a similar arrangement with Clark County.

But with the county facing a lawsuit over the deaths of the six children on March 19 -- a van drove off I-15 into the median and struck the teens -- the county may not be eager to join.

"We have not been approached" about the state's plan, said Margy Purdue, community development administrator for Clark County Family and Youth Services.

"Right now, we have a lot of things we are doing -- cleaning up parks, around this facility, vacant lots -- and there are community services programs for the United Way. We would have to review it (the state plan)."

The NDOT plan also calls for conservation crews from the state prison to be used more. However, many of those inmates are fighting forest fires now and are not available. "We will be using them more in the fall," Stephens said.

The Washoe County Sheriff's Office, in a program started by former Sheriff Dick Kirkland, sends inmates out to pick up trash.

If the department uses prison inmates in Southern Nevada, it will have to pay them a small salary. But inmate labor would be more cost effective than having full-time transportation department employees doing the work.

When the six youths were killed, the department suspended the Adopt a Highway cleanup effort in Clark County. But the program that allows a local club or group to periodically police one side of a highway for a couple of miles to make sure it was kept clean, has been continued in other areas.

McKenzie said that plans are under way to reinstate the Adopt a Highway program locally, possibly within the next month. The new local program would not involve youth groups, McKenzie said.

Jessica Williams faces charges in connection with the deaths of the children in the March accident.