When a homeless camp is abandoned, someone has to go out and clean up the mess. For the last few days, crews with the City of Eugene did some 'housekeeping' in Mauri Jacobs Park on the Willamette River. KLCC'S Tiffany Eckert spoke to Ryan Turner about the cleanup on the banks of the river.
Eckert: "Describe this abandoned camp when you came upon it and when crews started working what did you see and what have you cleared out?"
Ryan Turner: "This particular camp was made up of three tents, by the time we found them they were clearly abandoned. We posted them as is our protocol so if someone did have materials they wanted to remove they could take them. By the time we arrived, the tents were all flopped in on themselves full of basically the wreckage of someone's life: wet clothes, human waste, hypodermic needles, food, garbage. There's a pile of bicycles from dozens and dozens of bicycles. So a lot of trash that would have floated away. We also had a bout 30 or 40 hypodermic needles that were in the Willamette River starting to float downstream that were able to get out. This particular camp filled a 15 cubic yard dumpster and took about 20 hours of staff time to remove. And it's at an elevation that within a couple of weeks could be totally underwater."
