Tires in river trigger landowner’s ire

Posted 3/26/15

Thirty-four tires and parts of a toilet seat have piled up on a silt bar thus far, Clements said Tuesday.

The Wyoming Department of Environment Quality OK’d a variance to allow Willwood Irrigation District to temporarily lower the water level …

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Tires in river trigger landowner’s ire

Posted

Lots of flotsam has turned up on the Shoshone River facing Jan Clements’ place in the Eaglenest subdivision since the water level at Willwood Dam was reduced.

Thirty-four tires and parts of a toilet seat have piled up on a silt bar thus far, Clements said Tuesday.

The Wyoming Department of Environment Quality OK’d a variance to allow Willwood Irrigation District to temporarily lower the water level on the dam. The district applied for the variance so its manager, Tom Walker, could examine the dam, determine what repairs are needed and whether a costly mechanical silt-dredging operation is necessary.

Walker estimates 55 to 60 tires have passed through the 4.5- by 5.5-foot sluice gates since last month, but the tires’ starting points could be the river just above the dam or further upstream, he said.

From whatever location the tires were tossed in the Shoshone, the deeds are unconscionable, Walker said.

“It’s ridiculous,” he said. 

Clements called the Wyoming Game and Fish Department. They offered to help him retrieve the tires from the river, but Clements said he was willing to do it.

Neither the irrigation district nor the Game and Fish is responsible for the mess, he said. Rather, it is the people who dumped the tires and other rubbish in the Shoshone who are to blame, Clements said.

The approach to the river from his house, at the end of Eaglenest Trail, is a meadow of grass, sedge, sagebrush and a few cottonwood trees. Two sandhill cranes sailed into the sky like off-white kites towed by a child. Downstream, geese honked testily as though stuck in downtown traffic.

“I may have 34 (tires) now,” Clements said, gazing at the river and the silt bar. The tires he plans to remove are in stacks of three. A few more recently arrived and are stranded in the shallow water like an unseemly imperfection at an otherwise perfect place.

He tried to remove the tires by wading across a knee-deep channel in the river, but it was arduous hauling the heavy tires crammed with silt. So he stacked the tires on the bar with plans to return with his backhoe and a friend. He’ll ask his buddy to operate the backhoe’s controls while he wades out to the silt bar with a cable and choke chain.

Clements figures he can snag three or so tires at a time — but he is wondering how he will dispose of the tires.

Clements said he doesn’t mind tackling the cleanup project, because it is the right thing to do. But if people acted responsibly, he wouldn’t have to ford the river while dragging a cable to snag weighty, muck-filled tires. Litterbugs are a regrettable reality.

“If it didn’t have to be done in the first place, that would be the preferable operation,” he said. “It doesn’t surprise me, but it’s disappointing.”

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