Abandoned RVs demolished in forest

It's an ongoing blight, and it's a challenge to forest managers to remove abandoned vehicles in the national forest. There are no reliable numbers of discarded vehicles, but estimates continuously place the total in the many thousands.

In the Sisters Ranger District of the Deschutes National Forest the number runs between 30 and 40 per year, mostly RVs, the kinds towed by a car or truck and ranging in size from 15 to 35 feet in length. However, cars and motorcycles also litter the landscape. It's presumed that more are at the bottom of remote ravines or other obscure spots. The majority are close to town and usually highly visible to passing hikers, cyclists, and motorists using forest roads.

Several have caught fire, usually from careless occupants. While quickly extinguished, some have burned to the chassis, and all had the potential to cause catastrophic spread. And that is the greatest fear to residents.

Removal is a complex issue, according to the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). The cost is around $2,000 per vehicle to tow given the often-difficult setting or condition of the vehicle. Moreover, is the circuitous legal process to declare the vehicle officially abandoned.

Extensive efforts must be made to locate the owner. Vehicle owners living in the forest have no permanent address, and have often not licensed or titled their vehicle in a timely or legal manner.

The Forest Service reports that they have inadequate funding to remove vehicles on the scale encountered. The issue is also a problem outside the agency's core mission "to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation's forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations."

Critics argue that the USFS top priority is protection of the forest and removing such vehicles is eliminating a threat to the health of the forest.

In Sisters, the bulk of the work in removing the offending vehicles has fallen on volunteers. Such was the case last weekend when several members of the community came together to crush and haul off six RV's. They had already been moved from campsites in the forest to "the pit."

The pit is a four-to-five-acre site off FS Road 16, about two miles from Sisters. It is mostly the spot to house aggregate and other forest product waste, or to store large pieces of pipe or construction materials on a temporary basis.

It is not a landfill, sanitary or otherwise. And not designed as a repository of junked vehicles.

Photo by Bill Bartlett

Gary Tewalt surgically demolished abandoned RVs in the forest.

Led by Sisters Community Leadership Initiative (SCLI), a dozen or more volunteers - corporate and individual - took a hammer to the abandoned vehicle problem. Gary Tewalt of Tewalt & Sons Excavation made short work of dismantling the six RVs. Using a powerful John Deere excavator, Tewalt, with surgical precision, systematically dismembered the vehicles, and compacted the pieces into one of five 30-cubic-yard dumpsters donated by Republic Service for the effort.

Most of the carcasses will be taken to the landfill and some of the metal - chassis for example - will be carted for recycling.

Tewalt was one of the most vocal opponents of the proposed cold weather shelter, so some find it surprising that he regularly went around last winter supplying firewood to the neediest of homeless campers.

"I was pretty hard core about it," he said, "but not because some folks don't need help. It was the location and use of the shelter that I disagreed with."

He's developed a working friendship with Forest Protection Officer, Jeremy Fields, and offered Fields his support in keeping the forest safe and healthy.

"It's a shame what the Forest Service has to go through to get those things out of there," Tewalt said.

"Fields is a good soldier, and he took me up on my offer. It's shocking the condition of those RVs. It just needed to get done and I'm glad I could help a bit."

So is SCLI.

"It's people like Gary and others who come together to solve a problem that makes our mission so much more gratifying," said Danna McNeese, spokesperson for SCLI.

No sooner had Tewalt rid the pit of the RVs when Three Creeks Towing joined the community effort, and towed in two abandoned pickup trucks and the remaining hulk of a stripped sedan for final removal at a future date.

Tires from the rigs are a landfill nuisance, and unwanted. Les Schwab stepped up and they will provide proper disposal.

The effort resumes and SCLI is seeking community volunteers for more removals and fine-tooth cleanup both at the pit and in the woods in October. To participate email sistersscli23@gmail.com.