I wrote recently about picking up trash along my road, and afterward heard from one Mike Meintzschel via e-mail. "I think I got you beat on trash," he said. I concede this is true. The dude’s been out there with a video camera, documenting some pretty heinous litter and pollution around Charlottesville. See for yourself on his four YouTube videos. The series is called Charlottesville: City of Trash, not a hyperbolic title.
One takes a look at the old Avon landfill, off the Fifth Street exit from I-64. I’d never known there was an old landfill there. It appears to be releasing garbage into Moore’s Creek–as though the buried trash is being exposed along the very banks of the creek.
Meintzschel asks a good question: "As a priority why would you not treat it like 700 garbage trucks crashing on Highway 64 and spilling all their content onto the road?"
Another shows enormous amounts of trash in Lodge Creek and Rock Creek: mattresses, toilet seats, exercise equipment…it makes Charlottesville look positively post-apocalyptic. (And, incongruously, features rather delightful peppy music.)
A third shows sewers overflowing into Lodge Creek after a rainstorm, and a fourth documents erosion along Rock Creek and Lodge Creek after big storms and connects this problem to increased development. It’s a touching moment when Meintzschel points out a favorite beech tree that’s about to collapse into the creek because it’s being undercut by erosion.
Watch and be sobered, friends.