Caltrans pulled road crews because of COVID-19. Now it’s digging it out of trash backup
Drive a Sacramento-area freeway, glance to the side and you see mounds of roadside trash, the remnants of a pandemic.
In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, statewide stay-at-home orders to stop the virus’ spread relegated California motorists to the garage, throwing travel and commute plans in park.
Clean air advocates saw a silver lining in the state’s health crisis. The statewide shutdown meant open freeways, clear skies and California’s cleanest air in years. It didn’t result in the cleanest streets.
Roadside trash has piled up in the months since March’s pandemic stay-at-home order. Caltrans pulled workers off the roads in the order’s early days out of health concerns, but, “the trash didn’t stop,” said Caltrans spokesman Chris Clark.
Alongside northbound Highway 99 in Elk Grove, swirls of plastic bags and sheeting clump in the brush and weeds mixed in with scattered trash, cardboard flats and discarded clothes – even a construction barrier, partially hidden in the weeds off the road.
The sight, in spots, gives the appearance of a road abandoned.
“Three months is a long time,” Clark said recently. “You would be flabbergasted at how quickly trash accumulates.”
Lots of litter
Traffic has picked up and with more people heading outside and hitting the road, drivers and roadside clean up crews are seeing what’s being left behind. It’s not pretty.
Nor is the task of tackling the problem. The long on-ramp from Sacramento’s Broadway onto southbound Highway 99 showed what that takes.
Clark said clean-up for a stretch like that is normally an hour job for a Caltrans crew, In June, it took three hours. Workers filled “hundreds of orange Caltrans bags,” Clark said. “Litter is an everyday message. Trash compiles quickly.”
So, trash removal has picked up, too.
In June, Caltrans and the California Highway Patrol launched a statewide effort to restart roadside trash removal that had been limited since March because of COVID-19.
COVID-trained crews
Caltrans crews and Adopt-a-Highway volunteers not only took to the roads to scoop up trash and abandoned items that piled up on state highways during the health crisis. Caltrans also has paired workers and Adopt-a-Highway volunteers with industrial hygenists to show them how to stay safe while performing the dirty work.
Meantime, Caltrans’ public campaign encouraged motorists to help by carrying trash bags in their vehicles; properly cover and secure cargo carried in trucks and pick-ups; and volunteer to adopt a state highway and remove litter.
“Litter increases the risk of fire, pollutes our waterways, threatens wildlife and costs taxpayers millions of dollars to remove,” Caltrans director Toks Omishakin, said in announcing the campaign.
In 2019, crews collected 287,000 cubic yards of trash, according to Caltrans officials. The haul was enough, officials said, to fill 18,000 garbage trucks.
Sacramento County is home to 4,700 lane miles of roads – among the largest networks of county roadway in California – said spokesman Matt Robinson.
With the thousands of miles of road winding through the county, teams are needed to handle roadside trash removal, Robinson said, from Sacramento County Sheriff’s roadside work release crews to Caltrans’ bright orange trucks and Waste Management, which contracts with the county for disposal of illegal roadside dumps.
“They handle the big stuff,” Robinson said of Waste Management’s job, removing tires, car parts, discarded furniture and other large items.
Waste Management crews perform about 9,000 pickups a year – about 200 pickups per week up and down the county’s thousands of miles of roadway – Robinson said.
Public calls to the county’s 311 Connect non-emergency service line send the trash crews out, he said.
California Department of Transportation normally calls in inmate and work release crews, until COVID-19 concerns briefly brought that to a halt.
But Caltrans’ operations and maintenance units picked up the slack for the sheriff’s crews, Robinson said.
Those sheriff’s work release crews are now back on the job, with COVID precautions, said Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Tess Deterding.
“Work release is fully operational — all inmates are having temperatures checked before their work assignments,” Deterding said. The numbers of inmates transported to assignments are limited, Deterding said, and crews practice social distancing.
Meantime, state Department of Water Resources workers are clearing out culverts and waterways of trash and debris ahead of the rainy season curbing the potential for roadside flooding.
“It’s orchestrated. With all of the mileage in the county, it’s very difficult” to get to every trouble spot at once, Robinson said.
“That’s why we need the public’s help – and patience – to call it in,” he said. “It will be attacked by our staff.”
This story was originally published August 18, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
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