On a bike ride the day after Thanksgiving, I was once again impressed by the condition of the Periwinkle Bike Path: No trash, and no improvised camps visible on the wooded banks of the creek.
This gloomy November may not be the best time to visit Albany’s Simpson Park Trail. But I went there on the bike a weekend ago on what was still a nice fall day.
A state senator from Port Orford has an answer to the problem of vagrants leaving trash behind when they leave their camping spots along Oregon rivers: Make the state clean it up.
If we don’t want people setting up tents along Albany’s public paths, we’ll have to come up with another place for them to go whether we like it or not.
Saturday was their deadline for leaving, and by the afternoon people seemed to be getting ready to move their improvised shelters from the state property near the Ninth Avenue off-ramp on Pacific Boulevard.

Talking Water Gardens: no camps inside, but …
Talking Water Gardens, the wetlands Albany built in 2012, was all but deserted Wednesday afternoon, empty and almost completely clean. But that’s not the whole story.
Tags: DEQ, encampments, homeless camps, pollution, riverside camps, Talking Waters