US Forest Service officials say that college students who spent Memorial Day weekend by California’s Shasta Lake left a lot of trash behind.
About 3,000 students from the University of California, Davis, and the University of Oregon went to Shasta Lake, a 30,000-acre reservoir in the Golden State, last weekend and partied. They left behind a lot of trash around the lake.
The students didn’t clean up after themselves, even though they were told to, according to the forest service. They left behind trash like cups, cans, plastic bags, and pool floats.
CBS talked to Deborah Carlisi, a park staff officer at Shasta-Trinity National Forest. She said that staff members gave students trash bags to put their things in.
Carlisi said, “Some students used them, some didn’t.” It took a cleanup group of three people six hours to pick up all the trash around the lake. Still, not all of the trash was taken away.
Cleanup crews won’t be able to get to the trash at the lake’s bottom “until late next month or early July,” Carlisi said. This is because the beaches are rocky and the water is very high.
“What was left in the lake is a big problem because it could hurt our fish and wildlife. “A deer would get sick if it went down to the water and ate a plastic wrapper,” she said.
In answer to the trash, the University of Oregon said sorry for what its students did in a statement.
“The trash that was left behind doesn’t reflect the values of our school.” The message said, “We’re sorry for the damage to the island and the extra work for the forest service.”
“We are looking into what happened and working with the US Forest Service and our students to fix the problems and hopefully stop people from doing the same thing again.” This event is not funded or approved by the university, but it is attended by university students, many of whom are in fraternities and sororities that are recognized by the university, the university said.
In the same way, the University of California, Davis said it was looking into what happened and added, “The university was disappointed to learn of this behavior and is exploring ways of working with students to help restore the site or otherwise address the situation.” The information from the Forest Service is still being looked over.
“Students are expected to follow all laws, and if they don’t, they could get in trouble according to the university’s rules on student behavior.” It went on to say that the university does not approve of or support student trips to Shasta Lake over the Memorial Day weekend.