Kudos to volunteers who pick up garbage on Lac Qui Parle Lake and elsewhere!
When I was a youngster half a century ago, “Police the area” was one of the final instructions from Boy Scout leaders whenever we broke camp to return home. The rule was “Leave the campsite cleaner than you found it.”
Today it appears that too many of the folks who camp out on the ice or travel through Minnesota’s countryside never learned or have forgotten this message.
Whatever happened to the signs on roads years ago that read, “FINE FOR LITTERING HERE”? Maybe motorists have come to believe that “FINE” means “OK.”
All 50 states have laws penalizing various forms of littering. Minnesota has no less than four statutes that try to address the problem, but signs prohibiting litter are as scarce as hen’s teeth, enforcement obviously is even more rare, and so the unsightly is always in sight. It’s up to citizens to “adopt a highway” or, in the case of LQP, a lake.
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As for drivers, they should search “litter bag for car” on the Internet, make a modest purchase, and then make regular use of it. To paraphrase a current political slogan, we can all “Make America Beautiful Again!”
Steve R. Marquardt
Lake Lillian
