La Pine volunteers help clean up abandoned campsite

LA PINE, Ore. (KTVZ) --Paula Walters and a group of fellow volunteers spent the last four days cleaning up debris from an abandoned campsite in La Pine.

Walters said the people who had been staying at the campsite along Paulina Lake Road and Highway 97 were there for a few years, until the federal Bureau of Land Management asked them to leave earlier this year.

“This one has been sitting abandoned since February, and we’ve been keeping an eye on it," Walters said. "It’s just got to the point where we can’t leave this campsite abandoned anymore, because it's just getting worse and worse every day.”

The volunteer group spent 10 to 12 hours a day cleaning up the area and even filled up a large dumpster with all the trash they gathered.

Walters said that among the trash in the area were wrecked vehicles, abandoned appliances, needles and children’s toys.

"The biggest thing is the environmental impact that it has, not only the land but also the animals, eating rotten garbage -- it causes diseases. There's just so many things that go into it," she said.

Walters also owns a conservation business, Friends of Squatch, that helps clean up areas around Oregon, but this cleanup was all volunteer-based.

Walters said she is always looking for volunteers for the cleanups who can help tow some of the bigger items, like abandoned RVs and boats.