Mt. Whitney Portal Store & Hostel Forums General Mt. Whitney Portal Store Message Board Forest Service to release Environmental Assessment on Mt. Whitney toilets

Found this on Summitpost.com, thought it fit in nicely with the discussion.

http://www.summitpost.com/mountains/photo_link.pl/p/photo_id__22241__object_id__45__type
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route_id____user_id____order_by____limit__

I tot***y agree with those who have stated that the typical backpacker in the Whitney area will not carry out their waste. If the Sun Latrines are closed, and a mandate issued that everyone must pack out their waste, it will be disaster in the making. I firmly believe that rather that fewer facilities there is a definite need for more. Perhaps the answer is to raise the cost of the permit fee in order to fund additional facilities, and pay for their maintainence.
Additional facilities at both Outpost Camp and Trail Camp would help, with perhaps the thought that a facility higher, between Trail Camp and Trail Crest would help.Very unfortunately you cannot count on the general public that uses the mountain to "follow the rules". It works on Shasta, but the participants are of a different mind set.I have been on the main Whitney trail for the last eight years and am still amazed at the lack of understanding and degree of care of so many people.

Perhaps the solution is to find ways to change people's mindsets, to that of those on Shasta?

Ken:
Mt. Shasta is a tot***y different mountain. The motivation of anyone who attempts Shasta is considerably different from the average person, especi***y the day hiker whose motivation is to summit the highest peak in the contiguous United Staes just to say they have made it, and who will never return.Also there are a considerable number of people during the summer months who are from countries other than the U.S., and who want to go back home and say they summited the highest mountain in the U.S. They also will never return.
Then you have the groups of people, mostly men who are not outdoors people and who decide on a whim to summit the highest mountain etc. these groups can range from 2-3 up to 10-12 people. I have, at least the two times I have been on Shasta, never seen any of the aforementioned types of people. For the most part, climbers on Shasta are more experienced and commited to the ethics of the area, and will go to the effort to "pack it out".
I will not climb in the Whitney area agaim during the summer months. It is a much more beautiful area during the winter months, mainly due to the fact that the crowds are gone. The peace and serenity are worth the extra effort in dealing with the weather.
I sincerely hope that the powers that be find a solution to preserve the beauty/integrity of the area, even if it means lowering the quotas and raising the fees.

I don't have any perfect solutions, but it seems to me that an effort to try to look at things in an innovative way is warranted. If the population of people climbing Whitney is unique, then conventional approaches used in other settings is unlikely to work well at Whitney.

By the way, I did a little looking around at the Wilderness Act, and it contains exceptions that would allow the FS to do what it needs to do, in spite of the disignation. (this is what allows helicopters to land in emergencies).

I am not sure when the rest of you guys have been up Mt. Shasta, but both times I have camped at Helen lake the place was surrounded by a ring of poop. Pack it out does not work on Shasta, how can it work on a mountain that gets at least ten times the traffic.
How about having the meetings held at Helen Lake on Mt. Shasta, say about September, when the snow has melted enough to show what is really happening up there.

Just remember if they change this to a pack it out trail and it fails, no one will be willing to admit the mistaken and we'll be stuck with this program to the detriment of the Main Trail.

I wonder how the DWP feels about the potential comtamination of this water source?

Bill

This topic started with a message about meetings for public input about the toilet situation. Before anyone actually goes to the trouble of travelling to the stated meetings, you should know that the first meeting on January 8 would be invalid because it has not been properly noticed on the Forest Service Website. All meetings that are part of a process must be properly noticed, or they are invalid, and the proposed actions cannot be taken unless the process was valid.

Actually, I think the first post was bogus, just to see what kind of reaction would happen.

Starting January 5th, a copy of the document will be available on the Inyo National Forest website at www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo. Hard copies are available by contacting Brian Spitek at the Mt. Whitney Ranger Station at (760) 876-6217 or by e-mail at bspitek@fs.fed.us.

USDA - Forest Service
Inyo National Forest
Inyo County, California

Mt. Whitney
Human Waste Management

On January 2, 2004, Inyo National Forest, District Ranger Garry Oye, completed the Environmental Assessment (EA) for the Mt. Whitney Human Waste Management project. This EA is currently available for 30-day comment.
Mt. Whitney is the highest point in the lower 48 states, at 14,497 feet above sea level and topographically, the drainage is steep with limited camping locations. The two primary locations for camping are identified as Outpost and Trail Camps. U.S. Forest Service management of human waste on Mt. Whitney began 40 years ago; primitive pit toilets were first placed on the trail in the mid 1960s. In the early 1970s, a number of Forest Service reports identified concerns with visitation levels and waste issues on the Mt. Whitney trail. And again, in the early 1980s concerns mounted regarding the human waste situation on Mt. Whitney with disposal issues and health hazards. The Outpost and Trail Camp toilets were replaced with the solar toilet buildings, currently at the sites today. Throughout the 1990s several waste disposal methods were tried.
The existing toilets at Outpost and Trail Camp were installed twenty years ago and despite a series of modifications and retrofits, have been a high maintenance and controversial issue for many years. The EA for Mt. Whitney Human Waste Management analyzes the latest proposals for the management of this area. Alternative 5, Toilet Building Removal and Mandatory pack out of waste is being identified as the preferred alternative at this time; this is a change from the originally proposed action of Toilet Building Reconstruction. This preferred alternative would remove both toilet structures along the Mt. Whitney Trail and require visitors to pack out their own solid waste. The Forest Service will provide human waste pack out kits to each visitor, and disposal facilities will be provided at the trailhead at Whitney Portal. The existing toilet structures would be disassembled and removed by helicopter during the fall of 2004.
The Environmental Assessment (EA) for Mt. Whitney Human Waste Management is available either at the Mount Whitney Ranger Station, 640 S. Main Street, Lone Pine, CA or the White Mountain Ranger Station, 798 N. Main Street, Bishop, CA. Comments are invited on the proposed action, preferred alternative and additional alternatives contained within the Environmental Assessment.
The opportunity to comment ends 30 days following the date of publication of this legal notice (36CFR 215.6[a][2]) in The Inyo Register newspaper. Comments may be submitted to Garry Oye, District Ranger, White Mountain Ranger Station, Attn.: Whitney Comments, 798 N. Main Street, Bishop, CA 93514. Comments may be submitted by fax to (760) 873-2563, or by hand-delivery to the addresses shown above, during normal business hours of Monday-Friday 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Electronic comments in an acceptable format (plain text.txt, Word doc.) may be submitted to
comments-pacificsouthwest-
inyo@fs.fed.us,
Subject: Mt. Whitney Toilets.
Names and addresses of those who comment will be considered part of the public record, and will be available for public inspection. Comments submitted anonymously will be accepted and considered. However, those who submit anonymous comments will not have standing to appeal the subsequent decision under 36 CFR 215.
Only those who submit timely and substantive comments will have standing to appeal the subsequent decision under 36 CFR 215. Each individual or representative from each organization submitting substantive comments must either sign the comments or verify identity upon request.
For additional information on the Proposed Action or the Environmental Assessment, or to obtain a copy of the EA, please contact Garry Oye, District Ranger at (760) 873-2464 or Mary De Aguero, Deputy District Ranger at (760) 876-6227.
(IR: Jan. 6, 2004-#3184)

http://www.inyoregister.com/classifieds/index.inn?loc=detail&main=Public%20Notices

Thanks for the update 1531.Can we only view the plan in person at the FS offices or is it posted on the INYO website as well?

The full plan is on the web at:

http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/inyo/NewsRelease/Whitney_toilet_EA_dec03.pdf

The "Proposed Action" in the full EA, referenced above, says:
<blockquote>
The proposed action is to replace the two existing toilets, along the Mt. Whitney Trail at Outpost and Trail Camp with the minimum necessary structures to serve the allowable recreation use in the area of 60 overnight, 100 day and 25 over Trail crest per day. The proposed replacement toilet buildings will have a footprint of approximately 16’ x 16’ or 256 square feet. In addition there will be a deck area outside for unloading bins and several small liquid drying beds for a total footprint of 500 square feet or less. Connected actions include a proposed schedule for helicopter flights for construction and annual reoccurring maintenance.
</blockquote>
This is the "originally proposed action" mentioned in the latest announcement, it seems.

Is there more info regarding the change of thinking, or did somebody simply change their mind? I wonder what new information has emerged to render the previous proposed action inferior to Alternative 5? Does this new information need to be published?

My general impression is that even the (original) report, which concluded replacing the toilets was the best option, gives short shrift to the consequences of the inevitable non-compliance. The latest proposal will without doubt have a significant negative impact on the environment and spoil the wilderness experience for every single person that passes by Outpost or Trail camps.

Bill Law

Today's LA Times Outdoors section has an article about the human waste problem on Mt. Whitney. <a href="http://www.latimes.com/features/outdoors/la-os-whitney20jan20,1,6150362.story?coll=la-headlines-outdoors" target="latimes">Click here</a> for the article.
Gary

I went to the web site and read the entire document. I think that this is a much more complicated problem than is realized, certainly more than *I* realized. Of note is the not obvious point that is stated, that the consequence of this solution not working will be a vast decrease in quota, with assigned campsites along the trail.

I'm still confused by the discrepancy between the Proposed Action described in the online .pdf document and the supposed plan to remove the solar toilets and go to a carry-it-out system.

I want to submit a response but it seems hard to respond to a document that doesn't describe what they are really going to do.

Am I just missing something here?

I always say "when it starts getting weird, it's going to get weirder"

Note the contrast between the obvious care in preparing the Environmental Assessment, and the way that Ranger Oye cavalierly stated "I think I'm going to take the toilets out."

Note that there is an older master plan that addressed this:

Current direction in the Ansel Adams, John Muir, Dinkey Lakes Wilderness Plan (LRMP
Amendment 7) is as follows:
Maintain the Mt. Whitney toilet facilities at a level commensurate with allowable visitor
use and resource protection; not solely for the convenience of the visitor. Materials will
be in keeping with the surrounding environment. Support activities will be minimized
by efficient and suitable backcountry human waste management techniques. Permission
for mechanical and motorized transport of hazardous waste, building material etc. will
be approved annually. (pg 10)

Note that the actual report makes a good case for replacing the toilets with improved versions.

Note that the original post on this thread claimed that there would be two meetings. At least the first one was invalid because it was not properly noticed. Then note that the later post on this thread did not mention the meetings, and the newspaper notice did not mention the meetings.

Note also that the INYO website has the report but makes no mention of a 30 day comment period.

I think there is hoaxing going on here. However, to be safe, I submitted comments on the plan to Mary Beth Hennessy. She was the only safe contact as she was identified on the title page of the report itself. Her title from the INYO website is "Wilderness Planner".

Hopefully she will reply quickly about the validity of this comment period, then I'll let you know.

If the comment period is valid, we should all submit comments on the plan so that someone is not able to hijack the recommendation at the last minute. (I assume that most of you favor the recommendation of the report: Replace the toilets with improved versions.) The surprising thing to me is that the recurring costs of the toilets is significantly less than the costs of not having the toilets.

I must admit to a bit of confusion, as well. All the press relates to a "pack it out" program, but the report posted, clearly designates the replacement of the buildings as the proposed alternative.

What are they up to?

Perhaps this is being used as a tool to generate interest and involvement?

However, after reading the information, I must say that I have serious reservations about putting up another version of the current. When you read the actual operational requirements of what is being done now, I am opposed to ANY one doing that job. If it were a commercial operation, it would be illegal, but being the government, they can abuse employees. A job that requires unprotected contact with human fecal material is just insane. This means contact with HIV, hepatitis A, B, & C, enteropathogenic E. Coli, and a host of other disease causing bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites.

Fundamentally, this is being done for the *convenience* of the public, in hiking up the trail. I consider that an unacceptable trade-off.

The report clearly states that rangers are doing this work. Rangers??? The job title should be "sewer workers". What total waste of a ranger.

I know nothing about waste management, which puts me in the same category as the forest service, apparently. BUT, I must say, that Bob's 1,000 foot holes seem increasingly attractive!

Ken,

I understand the forest service personel are going to have to contact hazardous materials. I also realize as a society we handle the materials every day with no ill effect if properly train and equip the people doing so. If we in society in general can do it so can the forest service thus I view this as a cannard, and I have stated such in my comment to Mr. Oye. What they should do is build a storage shed for the materials they will use to maintain the facility, including haz-mat gear which is replenished when the fly the waste out, there is no reason to make someone carry this stuff up to the latrines.

I've read the reports alternates and pro and cons and nowhere in the this portion of the document is there any mention of the economic impact reducing permits will have on the Thompson's or the town of Lone Pine, which we all know will happen if they go to a PIO program because they aren't going to hire 50 poop police to make sure the backpackers are going to do what they are suppose to do, they can't even stop them from throwing trash into the latrines, now. Any report or decision which doesn't take this into account is a waste of taxpayers dollars as far as I'm concerned.

To me Mr. Oye wants to create pristine wilderness where none exists, nor would exist if the public has their way. I view Mr. Oye as one of the annointed who knows what is best for us because we are too stupid, which I have told Mr. Oye in two letters, in kind flowery terms. BTW, Mr. Oye chose not to respond to either letter, a first when dealing with people who run the Inyo.

Bill

Bill, I'm not sure why you are ragging on me, or even the ranger. I'm positive that political commentary is valuable, but ultimately meaningless, when the task is to find a solution within the framework of the law. I'm sure your flowery approach to personal criticism is appreciated by Oye, but I'm not sure it warrants a response from someone who must be very busy with responding to people with serious suggestions.

I guess I've always had significant respect for those who carry the title of ranger, and it is troubling to me that they get diverted to the job of sewer worker. Not that there is anything wrong with sewer workers, but to have the rangers do this, instead of protecting our wilderness, just bothers me.