Too much to clean up in one day

YAKIMA -- Northeast Yakima's first official Clean-up Day was such a success that organizers had to stretch it out a few days.

The event was supposed to be from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, but residents kept piling up so much garbage and yard debris by the roadside that volunteers couldn't keep up, said Tammy Regimbal of the city's Community and Economic Development office.

"It's too much," she said. "We're telling people to leave it out, and the city will pick it up Monday."

As many as 80 or more volunteers, as well as eight to 10 city employees, took part in the cleanup effort, which targeted the economically depressed neighborhoods surrounding Barge-Lincoln Elementary School on North Fourth and I streets.

Volunteers said they were astounded by the amount of garbage that was being placed out for pickup by residents, including dozens of old appliances and hundreds of tires. Several groups and churches participated, including Ready by Five, La Casa Hogar and the folks down at the city's Office of Neighborhood and Development Services. Many brought kids along.

"Truckload after truckload after truckload," said Regimbal. "One house alone had 60 tires."

At a vacant lot at the corner of Fourth and P streets, volunteers dragged more than two dozen large appliances -- mostly washers and dryers, along with the odd water dispenser or two -- into the field. Employees of Poor Boys Auto Wrecking in Gleed then loaded them onto a flatbed tow truck for recycling.

"This aint't even half of it," said Brad Deweese of Poor Boys. "We already hauled off 100 (appliances) back where we started on Second Street."

"And there's a lot of people who didn't take advantage of it," he continued. "You can still see plenty of freezers and refrigerators and what-not sitting in yards."

Regimbal said what to do with certain types of junked items, particularly large appliances, can be a problem for just about anybody. Paint and yard debris can also be problematic.

"It's not an easy thing to get rid of some of that stuff," she said. "A lot of people don't have the means or the appropriate vehicles to get rid of things. So it tends to pile up."

The cleanup project was the brainchild of Portland State University interns Cherize Ramirez and Greg Harpel, who are both from Yakima and are in the school's Urban Studies program.

As part of an effort to improve communication with City Hall, Ramirez said she and Harpel found that residents in the area consistently cited code enforcement as one of their top two priorities. Public safety was the other.

Building on a similar cleanup effort that targeted the north central neighborhoods earlier this year, Ramirez and Harpel put the word out by going door-to-door several weeks ago.

"We're just trying to get people connected with the city," she said, "and this project is an awesome first step."

* Chris Bristol can be reached at 509-577-7748 or cbristol@yakimaherald.com.