After a Memorial-day weekend at Shasta Lake, a lake in California, University of Oregon students, including some from UO sororities and fraternities, left behind “garbage” that the recreation staff of Shasta-Trinity National Park were tasked to clean up.
According to the U.S. Forest Service Detailed Public Affairs Specialist Amelia Fleitz, through “normal engagement” cleanup efforts between the public and recreation staff, it was determined that students from both UO and University of California Davis left trash behind.
Fleitz said that staff members were “actively” on Slaughterhouse Island, encouraging “Leave No Trace” ethics and cleanup by providing trash bags to members of the public.
Fleitz said that recreation staff were able to collect 17 bags of items that were above water levels, while items including cups and bottles remain in the lake until water levels drop.
In an email statement to the Daily Emerald, UO spokesperson Eric Howald said that UO is “investigating this event and working with the U.S. Forest Service and our students to remediate the damage and hopefully prevent similar actions in the future.”
Howald also said that the attendance of UO students at Shasta Lake was not a “university-sanctioned or sponsored event,” despite the fact that “many” who attended were from “university-recognized” sororities and fraternities.
Emma Roensch, president of UO Panhellenic Council, a council that oversees each sorority at UO, said that it was “very disappointing” to hear about what was left behind at Shasta Lake, considering how efforts were taken to clean up the lake.
“There was a woman in Alpha Phi chapter that, every single morning, she would wake up and go around the land and collect cans before everyone else woke up,” Roensch said. “There was a bunch of people picking up trash doing their part.”
Roensch said that though UO should be held accountable for what had happened, it would be “unfair” to fully put the blame on UO students when students of UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara were also in attendance.
“We also have to realize that there was two other schools there that did not do their part and stayed there a little bit longer than we did,” Roensch said. “Everyone should be [held accountable] because we were all there.”
According to Roensch, the Panhellenic Council and UO Interfraternity Council are joining forces with each president from the sorority and fraternity life to discuss a plan that will document future cleanups.
“We just had a few meetings on some game plans of how we can document it [cleanup] in the future,” Roensch said. “If we could have people possibly stay [to clean up] or like just a way that we can document everything that we’re doing to let people know that we care…that’s our first goal.”
According to Fleitz, a group of students from UC Davis are in the process of coordinating a day to volunteer with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service.
When asked whether or not there’s a plan to gather a group of students to volunteer for a cleanup, Roensch said that there is no plan in the works just yet.
“Sustainability is something that we [Panhellenic Council] have been working on all this year and trying to enforce and we do not want to continue what has happened at Shasta [Lake] this past weekend,” she said. “We want to make it just a better environment and a better look on our characters.”
According to Hira Shamsuddin, director of UO Outdoor Program, the point behind the “Leave No Trace” principle is that people leave the outdoor world exactly how they found it.
Shamsuddin also said that the “best thing” that can be done to prevent future incidents of littering is to educate people and hold them accountable for their actions.
“You should always leave a place better than where you found it,” Roensch said.
Howald did not confirm whether the university will take any course of action under the student code of conduct, though “such actions are not always punitive.”
He said that students may assist with clean-up procedures, instead.
