The U.S. Forest Service, which owns and manages Warren Falls and Blueberry Lake in Warren, has not yet installed bathroom facilities at either site this summer.
Forest Service spokesperson Allison Borchers said the delay in getting facilities to these two heavily used locations earlier this summer was due to a change in service providers. She said the porta-potties should be in place by next week, "if not sooner."
Porta-potties are typically installed closer to Memorial Day or early June at those locations and also throughout The Valley at locations stewarded by volunteers from stewardMRV. Mike Ware, of Warren, is a stewardMRV volunteer who regularly visits and monitors Warren Falls.
NO FACILITIES
In June, he noticed that there were still no restroom facilities at Warren Falls. He reached out to Tom Spencer, who manages stewardMRV for the Mad River Valley Chamber of Commerce and the community partners that keep the local stewardship program running.
"When the Fourth of July was approaching, and there were still no portapotties, I reached out again and Tom got in touch with the Forest Service folks in Rochester," Ware said. "He was told they would be ordered soon."
Soon never arrived, and those two sites — one a popular swimming hole and the other a well-used public lake with an extensive network of mountain biking and hiking trails — went through all of June, the Fourth of July weekend and last weekend's Mad Marathon event without restroom facilities.
Ware said there were more than 81 cars at Warren Falls, in the parking lot and along Route 100, when he visited on July 3. There are 30 spots in the parking lot at Warren Falls and the other cars were parked along Route 100.
LOCAL SITES
While stewardMRV can work with local towns on providing and servicing portapotties for recreation sites, Warren Falls and Blueberry Lake are federally owned and managed. That means stewardMRV can't provide the facilities.
The Valley Reporter learned that on July 14, the U.S. Forest Service did call Burlington-based Wasted, a porta-potty provider that supplies other local sites, to have units delivered to those locations, with expected delivery this Friday, July 17.
Eric Friedman, executive director of the Mad River Valley Chamber of Commerce and the force behind the creation of stewardMRV, credited Ware and all of the citizen volunteers who maintain the local recreation access points throughout the summer and fall for raising the issue. He said it speaks to the connections and lines of communication that have been developed in the five years the program has existed.
STEWARDSHIP
"It speaks to the ethos of stewardship that has evolved here and the relationships that have developed over time to help support the volunteers and educate the public. When folks noticed there were no restroom facilities in place, they reached out to ask why and get the process started," Friedman said.
Ira Shadis, executive director of Friends of the Mad River, said that while there are definite impacts from that much human waste being left in the woods and river at those sites, it's not on the magnitude of a municipal wastewater release, which happens in Vermont during times of heavy rain when stormwater and wastewater systems are overwhelmed.
Shadis credited stewardMRV for raising awareness that taking care of local recreation access points is important for river and human health. He said that in the five years since the program was started, Friends of the Mad River volunteers have seen less and less trash and human waste, and it's become easier to maintain the local sites.
"The practice is working," he said.
