There are few places more convenient to dump unwanted junk, appliances and trash than in the desert in the middle of nowhere.
There also are fewer places more illegal to do that dumping.
After 30 years of working with Wyoming Waste Systems in Sweetwater County, it takes a lot for something to stand out to Michelle Foote.
The abandoned yellow Bayliner boat that her team had to haul out of the desert north of Rock Springs this past week makes the cut.
“This is the first time that we've gone out and (recovered) something to this extent,” she told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s not in our usual wheelhouse, to be quite honest.”
Someone went through a tremendous amount of effort to load, haul, and dump the hard-topped power boat in a ravine where the dumper, presumably, thought it’d be out of sight, out of mind.
The irony is that they needn’t have done it at all.
“If they lived within Rock Springs, they could’ve taken it to the landfill free of charge, and it’s only a slight fee for Green River residents,” Foote said. “Somebody went through a lot of effort to dump it in that spot. Why they did is beyond me.”
Disposing Of The Desert Boat
Foote, the waste site manager for the company’s Rock Springs office, said some of her employees spotted the abandoned boat while exploring the area on side-by-sides.
It appeared to have been there for several months, at least.
“Apparently, there was something wrong with it, but I don't know for sure what that was,” she said. “We decided we were going to do something about it as soon as we knew it was there, because it was an eyesore.”
The boat was sitting at the bottom of a small ravine. The team had to go above and beyond to get it out, using a winch to haul it out and onto the flat surface above.
Once they got it there, the team was able to winch the boat onto a “roll-off box,” a tipping dumpster mounted on a trailer.
After tying it down, they called the Sweetwater Solid Waste District No. 1 office to report that a boat was sailing toward the landfill.
“They put it in the pit and buried it,” Foote said. “No problem.”
Needless Effort
The boat is no longer an eyesore in the wilderness of southwest Wyoming, but Foote still can’t wrap her head around the mindset of the person who dumped it.
They checked the boat for anything that might identify its previous owner, but nothing turned up.
“The only thing we found is that it had been registered up to 2014,” she said.
There were no bodies of water in the vicinity of the abandoned boat. Foote had to assume the watercraft was deliberately dumped at that spot along Lion Kol Road past the Rock Springs BLM Horse Corrals.
But why? In Foote’s view, the circumstances don’t add up.
“There wasn’t a trailer out there,” she said. “Whoever dumped the boat had to load it up, go out there, pick that spot, and somehow get it off their trailer, whether they pushed it or had to break hard enough for it to fall off.”
Furthermore, Lion Kol Road is essentially a dead end.
The boat abandoner would have had to haul it along several roads, including a section of U.S. Highway 19, to reach Lio Kol Road.
If they were hauling a boat, they would presumably have secured it to a trailer to prevent it from falling off en route. Boats aren’t built to stably rest on flat surfaces, let alone on moving trailers.
Also, the landfill would’ve accepted and disposed of the boat, without question. This is demonstrably true because the landfill accepted and disposed of the boat, without question, once Wyoming Waste Systems delivered it there.
Why someone would go through that much effort is a mystery to Foote. Perhaps someone assumed it would cost money to dispose of it the right way.
“It was definitely deliberate,” she said. “You already have it loaded, so why not take it to the appropriate spot where it can be processed or handled correctly, instead of littering up our desert and littering up our community?”
All The World’s A Dump
The yellow Bayliner is an extreme example of a larger problem of people dumping trash, construction debris and non-running vehicles in the middle of nowhere.
It took three dump trucks to haul away more than 6 tons of illegally dumped garbage on public land near Riverton in 2022.
It was a clean-up of an area where illegal dumping had become so prolific that it was becoming part of the landscape.
Six men packed three eight-yard dump trucks with 12,280 pounds of washers, dryers, furniture, and other household trash over the course of one workday, the Wyoming Department of Transportation said at the time.
WYDOT maintenance crews from Riverton removed the trash from the portion of Gas Hills Road that’s under state jurisdiction — that is, the road and its shoulders leading up to the fence.
Beyond the fence line lay tribal lands of the Wind River Indian Reservation, plus public lands — and a lot more garbage.
Trashy Information
Wyoming Waste Systems has been doing non-hazardous solid waste disposal in Sweetwater, Carbon, Fremont, and Uinta counties since 1992.
The company prides itself on offering cost-effective waste removal solutions for anyone who needs it.
“We sponsor or provide services for the annual waste cleanups in Rock Springs and Green River,” Foote said. “People volunteer and pick up several tons of trash, and we provide the dumpsters to haul that trash to the landfill.”
Foote said the company regularly provides waste removal services for nonprofit events, often donating on-site dumpsters. They’ve also established a scholarship program for high school seniors in Rock Springs and Green River.
Education, or the lack thereof, is the only explanation Foote can find for the deliberately dumped boat.
She believes many Sweetwater County residents aren’t aware of everything they can take to the local landfill, and how little it costs.
“They are open seven days a week, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.,” she said. “If you live within Rock Springs, you can go take your items there for free of charge, and there’s only a slight fee for Green River residents with excess trash.”
It’s worth noting that Sweetwater County Solid Waste Disposal District 1 is only a 17-minute drive from the spot where the boat was dumped.
Foote’s job is all things trash and waste disposal, but she believes many Sweetwater County residents aren’t aware of the resources available to them.
Besides, it’s a lot easier, takes less effort, and is more considerate to dispose of trash at the landfill rather than dumping it in the desert,” she said.
“I want to believe that it's a lack of education rather than doing it to be defiant,” Foote said. “The desert is not your personal dump.
"You've got to take certain steps to make sure things are processed. They have that ability at the Sweetwater County landfill, so it blows my mind that people don't use it.”
It’s Their Desert, Too
Foote and the 25 employees working for Wyoming Waste Systems in Sweetwater County take pride in keeping their community clean. After all, it is their home.
“All of us are very much interactive within our community, and very much want to keep it looking nice,” Foote said. “That’s what drove us to go ahead and remove that boat from the desert. It was an eyesore, and nobody wants that in their community.”
Foote regularly gets calls from people and businesses across Sweetwater County asking how to dispose of, and occasionally, recover trash. After a 30-year career, it’s hard to be surprised by anything.
“Nothing’s weird anymore,” she said. “I get calls from people asking what they can throw away, or if they can recover something they didn’t mean to throw away, and we try to work with them on that. It’s nothing too extraordinary.”
That’s why the abandoned boat is going to stand out. It was a confusing find, the result of an even more confusing decision and effort that will probably only make sense to the person who dumped it.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
