Sometimes ideas must be worded in a certain way for their truth to sink in.
Amy at The Bookstore said to me this week, “The bear problem won’t be fixed until the garbage problem is fixed.”
Whoomp. There it is.
The garbage problem, as it relates to bears, has two main parts: 1) Bears breaching the landfill, and 2) Improper or insufficient garbage storage by residents, attracting bears.
With luck, management by Craig Franke, the new guy at Community Waste Solutions, has permanently stopped bears from getting into the company landfill on FAA Road.
The second element of the garbage issue – insufficient garbage storage by residents – is a tougher nut to crack. As in so many similar public policy situations, two approaches might work: 1) Regulations, laws and strict enforcement by police, with real penalties, or 2) Voluntary, long-term changes in citizen behavior.
Government-inclined people tend to like Solution #1 because it’s clean and quickly effective. Unfortunately, it’s also expensive and pisses people off. Solution #2 is cheaper and preferable to most folks, but it’s very difficult to achieve. Getting everyone in our town to change their behavior regarding trash is akin to getting everyone to floss their teeth daily.
When I was on the assembly, I opposed a Solution #1 approach to garbage issues because I doubted their necessity, I disliked the price tag, and I thought government should at least first TRY to get people to change their behavior before dropping a hammer on them.
Pertaining to the bear-garbage problem, dropping the hammer has some appeal. This is how it might work. The Haines Borough could require all townsite residents to register for residential garbage pick-up. The borough could require and provide residents with bear-proof containers to put out on their curbs. The borough could direct police to aggressively enforce existing laws on attracting bears.
Requiring pick-up isn’t a crazy idea. It was City of Haines law in the early 1980s. Some residents resisted the law, and the municipality chose not to enforce it. Soon, many townsite residents discontinued pick-up service, resulting in more trash being stored around homes. It should be obvious why requiring pick-up also would require bear-proof garbage cans.
Solution #2 might work, but it would still require some money from the Haines Borough. That money would go to a prolonged public education campaign – in the local media, in schools, in stores, everywhere – to motivate residents to handle their garbage responsibly.
This solution might include some other, voluntary steps – say, the borough asking every household to mail in a drawing and description of how they store garbage outside their home. Or funding a program that would allow residents to buy bear-proof garbage storage containers at a reduced price.
These measures might cost $50,000 or so annually until everyone – or enough people – are doing the right thing by way of their garbage.
Solution #2 would cost homeowners much less than Solution #1, mandatory collection in the townsite and mandatory, bear-proof trash containers. Solution #2 also wouldn’t be a quick fix. We are slow to changing our habits. Bears would still be get into garbage and get killed for a number of years.
But it might work, and because it’s less expensive, less authoritarian and less jarring than Solution #1, it should be tried first.
We have learned in the past year – even since passage of the new, borough bear ordinance last spring – that what we’re doing now isn’t working. Bears are still getting into garbage and food. Bears are still getting killed.
We won’t solve the bear problem until we solve the garbage problem. Solving the garbage problem will require spending public money. The only real question for the Haines Borough at this point is deciding how much money it wants to spend.