Dear Tradewinds,
This morning on my daily walk along Francis Bay Walking Trail I approached a National Park Service Ranger who was giving a guided bird-watching tour along the trail. I asked her why, in the many months that I have been here this winter, no one from the Park Service has cleaned up any of these nasty clothes and food waste thrown along the trail. She explained to me that the Park Service is understaffed and there is no man-power to clean up these trails.
So my question is this: How can there be no man-power to clean up garbage from the trails but there is man-power to give twice weekly bird-watching tours?
If “Friends” and Park Service continues to expect people to give substantial financial contributions and to attend charitable events in honor of the National Park, than Park Services or SCA Volunteers need to start practicing what they preach to do: Clean up beaches and trails.
Brown Bay has become a garbage dump with dozens of old garbage bags broken and left all over the beach. I hope this letter shows the urgency of the situation to please get one of these fancy fast Park Service boats over there to haul them away.
I love this island, but I have seen it getting dirtier and dirtier over the last six years. I wonder if this is the reason why organizations such as Caneel Bay and the Westin limit their financial contributions to the Park organizations. I hope that with this plea, they will see an urgency to maybe cut the number of bird-watching tours to once a week, and use the other day for trail clean-up.
If we work together we can keep this island precious.
Kristine Szabo