This junk marks the entrance to a much bigger debris field deeper in the bushes. (Feb. 16, 2026)
That’s the trouble with winter: The foliage is gone and you can see the trash that people have left behind where, in summer, it’s hidden in the bushes.
Such is the case on private property along the Calapooia River in Albany just downstream from the Queen Avenue bridge. You’re not likely to see it driving across the bridge. A reader told me about the spot, and on a bike ride Monday I stopped to take a look.
“Could you please check out the homeless camps by the SW Queen Ave/Calapooia River Bridge?” the email said. “It is disgusting the trash that piles up. ”
Disgusting it is. But it may be wrong to blame the “homeless.” I think there are people who, for one reason or other, are forced to live rough for a time and don’t cover the countryside with trash.
The dumps we now see are piled up by bums and vagrants who have said to hell with civilization. Maybe they can no longer help themselves. But “homeless” is not their only problem, and not the main one.
Oregon has accepted this state of degradation in a small part, a tiny part, of our population. We are left to deal with the mess because, in the name of toleration and civil rights, the agencies of our government allow it.
Under the guise of compassion, we tolerate behavior that in saner times would have resulted in people being locked up in asylums, or sanatoriums if they had means.
Locking people up for vagrancy sounds cruel. So we don’t do it any more. Our society now says it’s better to try to clean up the trash, over and over again, until even the most dedicated cleanup volunteers give up the fight. (hh)
Some of the trash is visible through the bushes near the Queen Avenue bridge across the Calapooia.
Along Queen Avenue just outside the Albany city limits, near the Calapooia River bridge.
How many times will Hasso beat this dead horse. For better or worse, the nation shifted away from Hasso’s sanatoriums some decades ago, not because it was more compassionate to do so. No…that transition happened because the once more-compassionate Oregonians became less so. Taxpayers screamed about the costs of the State Hospital and similar resources. And what a simple solution – dump this population on the streets and hope for the best. If you want your little perfect life to include no homeless camps of marauding, filthy folk .. that costs money. What’s it worth to you?
See, You simply can’t live without Hasso. What a parasite.
Do you have that mirror handy that AO (or something like that) Anon said you need to look into?
You still haven’t figured out which person someone is responding to.
Thanks for playing.
Oops! It was MarK that OG Anon told to look in a mirror. I got the horse’s patooties mixed up. Oh well, they are cut from the same cloth.
You have it right, Hasso. Oregonians have chosen to accept litter and potential hazards that go with it. It used to be a $500 fine to litter. Oregon makes a lot of exceptions that hurt the quality of life today that the state did not 40 years ago. As you say, this is a small problem in the big picture. But it is also indicative of the malaise that pervades the state. There is a small park right next to the river (we used to take a short cut through there to go pick beans on Bryant Drive). Not great for kids to be exposed to that waste, that might include needles and so on.
NO OREGONIANS have not accepted this!! The pandering law makers and government bureaucrats have forced this down our throats.
“NO OREGONIANS have not…”
YES THEY HAVE! I get you don’t like the outcome. However, you’re 100% wrong. You simply disagree with the “elected representatives” who made the choice for you. That’s how our system works…
Glad to see you confirm, Ray, that our elected representatives are allowing trash to pile up and not doing anything about it to prevent it from happening in the first place by dealing with those that are dumping it.
And your plausible & financially feasible solution is? It only takes four votes to make change via Council… Different for County & State of course. :-)
Who is this tiny group that supports trash? I do not believe ANYONE does. I believe most people think if I don’t see it ,it doesn’t exist. I have personally walked grocery carts back to stores, picked up trash along trails and river banks. I agree with you that some homeless have given up hope and the least they worry about is their civic duty to clean up the public areas they inhabit. Remember most people don’t like seeing public homelessness, so they hide themselves along with their trash. So what is the solution? I’m on board to help.
If you want to see another example , even more appalling, take a bike ride down the path at takena landing park. And take a look off of all the side trails people have made.
Twice recently I’ve been before the CC, trying to get them to take a little responsibility for their property. I’m not optimistic they will, they need pressure from more people to make it a higher priority. And they need to figure out a more efficient and economical way of dealing with it.
Hey Hering, Van Buren here:
How about joining our Periwinkle Wade later this year. July 18th, 9 am, meet at Periwinkle School parking lot.
Volunteers, Boys Scouts, and the Steelheaders, join up to walk the center of the creek while it is low; and clean up the waters and banks around it.
Branches, trees, reeds, rocks, bikes, shopping carts; anything that slows down movement of the creek.
Not only will the creek run mor e freely, but the fish runs might be re-established.
Private property, you write. Interesting.
Is there city code against this? More unenforceable code that is.
Perhaps the city should enter into a discussion with said property owner and entice them to clean it up?
Or are they too busy cooking up new and fresh ways to stick it to us financially?
Just saw a mattress along Ellingson, then a bit further on, two chairs or pieces of couch sectional. in the ditch.
Alot of the left over stuff at these places people try to find refuge is left there because the police come in and give minimal time to leave. When your only source of transportation is a bicycle how can they remove everything in 30 minutes? They are told that if come back to that area they will be criminally charged with trespassing so at that point they frantically dig through EVERYTHING THEY OWN and prioritize. It’s devastating to them to constantly lose everything over and over and then to be so publicly ridiculed is just one more weight holding rhem down. Flowers can’t grow if you’re stepping on them and people can’t grow when the full weight of judgement from so many is on top of them
Well if you want to see a shower of trash follow a republic services truck out of Albany along hwy 20 to independence hwy they dump a lot of garbage along those highways, but nobody will do anything, the police could supplement their budget by stopping these trucks and giving them citations, but nothing will happen as they are to busy looking at camera footage from their money maker cameras