By Ashley McCarty
Long before COVID-19, another epidemic had grown roots in the county — trash.
John Wood, of Manchester, Ohio, has been a full-time resident of Adams County for about four years now, but he and his wife, Deb, have been visiting the area since 1962.
After buying a boat in 1962, he and his wife started frequenting the Ohio River.
“The company I bought the boat off of asked me if I’d ever gone to the Ohio River. We went to the Ohio River, put the boat in at Ripley, and so we started coming to the Ohio River all the time,” said Wood.
Those river trips progressed steadily, and soon, the couple were camping on the Ohio River at Twin Islands Campground in Manchester. In 1988, they purchased land.
“We put in a weekend place there; we’d come down every weekend. We raised our kids on the boat on the Ohio River. We camped when they were building the Killen Power Plant, and now I’m here when they’re tearing it down. That’s how long we’ve been coming down here,” said Wood.
Once employed with a fortune 250 company, Wood left in 1995 to pursue full-time ministry. In ministry, they traveled the United States.
“In ministry, we traveled all over the United States, but we’ve always had the property here. The property here was a place we’d get away to. About four years ago, we retired from full-time ministry. We had a home in Nashville, North Carolina, up on a mountain; beautiful home. So, we’re up here [in Manchester], and we’re trying to decide where we’re going to retire. We could go anywhere, and we’ve been to most places, so we had a sense of the country. My wife said, ‘you’re really content here, aren’t you?’ I said it was the only place I’d ever been content. She said let’s build a home here. So, we built a home on the river,” said Wood.
Wood decided to settle in Adams County for two reasons: the people, and the abundance of nature the county provided.
“The people in Adams County are special. They’re not like the other people in the rest of this country. The people here are very special. Our pastor told the congregation that Adams County is not like the rest of the world. I don’t think they understood, but we understood. The people here are different. That’s one reason to settle here, and we plan on being here for the rest of our lives. The other reason is the nature in the county. The river is beautiful. The hills are beautiful, the farmland. If you’re a hunter, you anything you’d want to hunt. A fisherman [has] all these streams and lakes. You have 25 trails to hike on. There’s no place else in the country or Ohio like this,” said Wood.
Adams County has great people and a great, natural place to live — and there’s trash everywhere.
“ So, as we take this unique place we have — which is outstanding as far as we’re concerned — we have to ask ourselves, why do we trash it? Manchester has a clean up day every year; they’re trying to clean up homes. That community is working hard. I think West Union and Peebles do the same thing. So, the communities are trying to keep themselves presentable, but what I see is, [like on State Route 247 going north from West Union], it looks like a garbage dump there’s so much trash. That’s not the only place,” said Wood.
Even the community leaders have said the trash is horrible, he said.
“One has used Venture Productions to clean up in front of their place. The other one — and I thought this was pretty good — his point was, there’s no place that it’s clean, so people don’t know what it looks like clean. Which makes sense,” said Wood.
Wood lives on U.S 52, and they commit to keeping their section very clean.
“We will pick up four 55-gallon bags of garbage a year. We also participate in the river cleanup, where once a year we’ll clean up the riverbanks. On our boat ramp, they’ll pick up 50 to 100 bags of trash a year, including tires and everything,” said Wood.
Being in the recycling business, Wood has experience with the three types of trash; paper, cans and plastics.
“Paper will disintegrate in about two years. Cans in about 10 years will rust away, even the aluminum cans. Plastics takes about 10,000 years to disintegrate. The paper doesn’t have any value to speak of, but cans have a lot of value. It takes a minimum amount of energy to convert an aluminum can back into a new can. The plastics are the same way, it takes very little energy to convert plastics,” said Wood.
Wood and his wife recycle, and haul their recycling to the drop-off in West Union from their residence in Manchester.
“[It’s] always full to overflowing. That tells me there’s a lot of people who care. There are people and movements who [could clean], but somebody has to lead,” he said.
“Litter cleanup is one that our county maintenance crews will address, but our primary concerns are items like potholes, bridge and culvert replacement, things that are integral for keeping the roadways safe for motorists. Litter is definitely an issue across the state. As an agency, we spend around $4 million a year just with our forces doing trash pick up. We also have partnerships where possible. We participate in some of the Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections programs with inmate litter pickup crews,” said ODOT District 9 Public Information Officer Matt McGuire.
ODOT also actively sponsors and encourages people to join the Adopt a Highway program.
For those Adopt a Highway teams, we’re happy to set up road control, provide trash bags and once the crews have collected we will come through and pick up the bags and get them to the landfill. If people have concerns about areas that are particularly heavy with trash, they can contact either our county maintenance facilities or our district office and we will allocate forces to deal with that as we are able,” said McGuire.
Particularly frustrating for them is that litter is a 100 percent preventable problem, he said.
“It’s something that is well within the scope of the public to help us combat, so that’s one of the big pushes we’ve had this year to raise that awareness and really try to encourage people to just keep it in their car until they get somewhere where you can throw it away. Keep it in your vehicle, wait until you can get to a rest area, or a gas station, or until you get home and throw it in the trash can. We [also] absolutely encourage people to join the Adopt a Highway program. It was on hold from the pandemic, but it has been reactivated, so we’ve been actively encouraging people,” said McGuire.
The Adams County Court system has employed their probation department to both combat the garbage and beautify the county with community service.
At the helm of community service, Community Service Coordinator Marla Thompson works closely with the Township Trustees.
“The judge gives the individuals on probation so many hours and then they work for us. We have a couple of people like Kevin Eldridge and Lisa Phillips that go out with them to do the community service. I go to all of the township meetings, and they tell me what they need done. Everybody has trash, but some of them want their cemeteries cleaned up, one township wants a fence painted, and one township wants a fence torn down and they want brush cleaned up. I just go to them and ask them how we can help them,” said Thompson.
Community service starts April 1, and continues through October or September depending on weather.
We always have a bunch of tires, we always have a bunch of furniture. Right now, I have a couple of couches I have to get picked up. We’ve got mattresses. People just throw stuff out everywhere. It’s terrible that people do that. It makes our county look terrible, and I wish people wouldn’t trash it up like they do. We have the same problem every year usually when we start,” said Thompson.
Last year, the Adams County Community Service Totals for 2020 recorded 130,750 pounds of trash.
“We also do all the clean up and trash removal for the fair. In addition, certain persons on probation who work as tradesman are ordered to paint, build, weld, roof, power wash, run electricity and mow among other things publicly owned assets for the Townships, Villages and the fair. We recaptured several overgrown cemeteries the past two years, one of which had Revolutionary War Veterans interned. There really is no limit on what we will attempt to assist with for the public’s best interest,” said Court of Common Pleas Judge Brett Spencer.
Winchester Township Trustee Rick Hardin has currently targeted Graces Run and Bethlehem Road for community service crews.
“We keep an eye out on the roads, and then sometimes, like this particular one was pointed out to us by a resident that lives nearby. When I took the time to go look at it, I fully understood. We have guidance from the other two trustees, our employee, and the residents will let us know if we don’t see it,” said Hardin.
The garbage is a never-ending cycle, especially at the Park and Ride at State Route 32 and 136, he said.
“They just will not use any housekeeping measures whatsoever there. The Park and Ride has got to be the worst, and Mike Swackhammer takes care of it for the village. The state even provided a dumpster at one point in time, but other people were filling up the dumpster that didn’t even use the Park and Ride. They came and took the dumpster away because it would just overflow out of the edges. Mike has it on schedule now every week and he cleans it up. I just passed it this morning, someone was cleaning their car out at the Park and Ride right in the parking lot. Mike will clean it up,” said Hardin.
Winchester Township Trustees even take tires for free and dispose of them. They take any amount from Winchester Township and Winchester.
“I get a lot of compliments on how clean the Winchester community is,” he said.
Some members of the community have already attempted to tackle the trash problem. One group, Trash Talk, spearheaded by Rae Vogler, was formed three years ago to address the ongoing issue.
“It started with me just driving to and from work and getting frustrated by the ever accumulating trash on all the roads that no one wants to acknowledge, is everyone’s problem. And, still is. So, I put a message out to see if anyone was interested in addressing the issue, hands-on and it just went. I asked for trash bag donations or money for bags, grabbers, and gloves from local businesses. It was very well received,” said Vogler.
Over the course of her volunteer work, Vogler has also discovered the litter is a political issue.
“Village’s are responsible for what is inside limits. The county roads rely on The Probation Department or us; township roads rely on Trustees to organize a clean-up. I am also a member of Adopt A Highway to cover our state roads. Our group can volunteer anywhere in the county on public property. We need accountability and a plan handed down by our local law enforcement and government to see noticeable improvement,” said Vogler.
The Trash Talk group always welcomes more volunteers and donors.
“I am using up last years funds to purchase this years bags for roads that ODOT does not cover. You can go join our Facebook group or call 937-779-7899 from 9 a.m to 5 p.m. to become a volunteer with our group,” she said.
