Trash, encampments proliferate along railroad tracks

Dean Jewett, who owns Radio Fryer with his wife, Jackie, told Mason County commissioners illegal homeless camping is increasing in Shelton's woods.

"I want to talk about the railroad camps," Jewett said at the Sept. 24 regular commission meeting.

The camps sprawl on either side of the tracks that wind by Sierra Pacific Industries' lumber mill up behind the Shelton Yacht Club and beyond.

Jewett said the county manager told him a 5-gallon bucket of human feces can contaminate 13 acres of shellfish.

The county does a good job of permitting septic systems and making sure people are in compliance, he said.

"Especially ones who live on the water."

Jewett wondered whether septic tanks are really a problem and suggested it's more likely waste from the "unsanctioned and illegal camps flowing in there."

He said the camps need to be cleaned up and posted. A homeless camp is being cleared in Olympia that will take a month to clean up, he said.

"They're cleaning up the camp, but they're not doing anything with the people who live in the camp. Is that same thing going to happen to the railroad? Is that same thing going to happen to Goldsborough Creek? There are active, live camps up there."

Jewett said not too long ago the railroad camps were removed.

"A lot of effort was put into cleaning up the camps," he said. "But if you take a walk back up there, the camps are starting to fill back up again."

Jewett led a walk along the tracks Sept. 24 to point out the encampments.

Garbage was piled near the tracks and empty tents and sleeping bags were tucked away under bushes and trees.

The first inhabited camping area was in a wooded area that sloped down to Oakland Bay before the tracks crossed over state Route 3.

At least 10 people were gathered around two fires. Smoke drifted over the bay.

Numerous small streams flowing from the hills above the tracks and into the bay were clogged with trash. At least one stream had a makeshift diversion of plastic tubing and pans, channeling the water into a 5-gallon bottle.

"I hope they're not using that for drinking water," Jewett said.

He turned around at a dumpsite spread throughout the trees above the Shelton Yacht Club.

"It's more of the same," he pointed farther up the tracks.