Re: [Paddlewise] Public beaches - was Saturation Point

From: <dmccarty_at_us.ibm.com>
Date: Wed, 29 Sep 1999 10:10:07 -0400
|I agree with Philip that this is very civilized! I wish we had such a right
here
|in North America. (And before some private property right advocate makes a
snide
|comment, yes I am a land owner, and no I would not mind having this apply on my
|properties.)

Hmmm, have you ever seen what bank fisher's do to an area?  Here in North
Carolina, the state has very nicely created many areas that are Public Access
Areas.  These are generally for people to fish from the bank on rivers and
lakes.  I can think of two places that allow motorized boat traffic but
generally around here they are used by the public to fish the lakes.

This is a good thing.  I think it is a d...d good thing.  I've used some of the
access points to launch my paddle boats.

The bad thing is that they access points quickly become a dump site.  I don't
mean that people come in and dump dishwashers or tires, well I have seen tires,
but the bank fisher's leave piles and piles of trash and dead fish.  Its
disgusting.  The state places trash barrels in the parking lot but these B...ds
are too lazy to use them.  Instead they just throw there soda bottles on the
ground along with their junk food bags.  But that just mixes right in with the
dead fish they killed and decided they did not want to clean and eat.

These people have been given access, a right, and totally failed in THEIR
responsiblity to the access areas.

Now, I don't think all people who fish from the bank do this but certainly a
large segment of that population do.  There is just to much trash in to many
access areas to be caused by a small minority of people.

What is very interesting is that I don't see as much of this at the boat ramps.
And generally the trash at the ramps is bank fishers.  On one lake access I use
frequently, sometimes they charge 4 dollars to get into the park.  Sometimes
not.  This place is clean.  I don't think it is clean because the park employees
clean up because there just aren't that many employees to keep it clean.  The
fact that SOMETIMES you get charged to get in seems to keep out the people who
trash the lake bank.

It seems the people in the Scandinavian countries have more respect for the
environment and other peoples property.  I don't see this here.

I had a small piece of land in the country.  I am trying to buy a much larger
piece.  The land will be posted.  If I don't I'll just have problems.  Much of
the land I have looked at has had trash dumped on it and I'm not talking about
land on a river or a lake.  Someone has something to dispose of and instead of
taking down the road to a county collection they see some empty land and it dump
time.

I agree the open land right is very civilized.  Its incredibly civilized to have
the open land "policy" but there is an reciprocal civility that is expected for
the right.  It only take a very few people to ruin things for everyone else.

Later....
Dan McCarty


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Received on Wed Sep 29 1999 - 07:11:22 PDT

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