Potty Vandals Leave Nowhere To Go Scarcity Of Toilets Leads To Cross-Legged Panic For Some Users Of The Centennial Trail
Bladder size is as important as leg strength for Spokane Valley users of the Centennial Trail.
Already a rare commodity on the urban trail, toilets are even more scarce this summer, as vandals do their best to keep trail users in a state of cross-legged panic.
The Spokane County Parks Department closed a pair of privies at the Plantes Ferry trailhead after someone set fire to the free-standing wooden stalls early this summer.
A set of portable toilets at Minnehaha Park is frequently closed due to vandalism. Located near Upriver Dam, Minnehaha is rock-studded natural area that is popular with climbers. The outhouses also serve walkers, bicyclists and skaters who pass the park on the paved Centennial Trail.
Fire bugs burned the original set of Minnehaha toilets earlier this year, said Wyn Birkenthal, county parks director. The replacements are frequently knocked over.
“Once one of those is tipped sideways, you’ve really got a mess” because the contents of the holding tank spills into the privy, said Birkenthal, whose crews righted the toilets again Friday.
Other than Minnehaha and Plantes Ferry, there is only one restroom along the 18 miles of trail from Mission Park in east Spokane to the Idaho state line. It would take an average walker three hours to reach that restroom at the old Walk in the Wild zoo site after a potty break at Mission Park.
Folks who know the Valley well can find more toilets at Sullivan Park. But they’ve got to get off the trail and cross the Sullivan Road bridge to reach them.
Trail users surveyed by the state parks department listed restrooms and drinking fountains as their top two needs. The survey was done last fall, before the vandalism.
Spokane County Commissioner John Roskelley hopes to use money from the real-estate excise tax to install vandal-resistant restrooms along the trail. Other than their pre-fabricated concrete shells, the restrooms would operate just like the portables they’d replace, which don’t flush and have no running water.
“We can’t keep building wooden toilets and letting kids burn them down,” said Roskelley, who plans to discuss the matter next week with his fellow commissioners.
Punk-proof privies are pricey: about $7,500 for a one-holer or $15,000 for double stalls, said Jane Houghton, landscape architect for the Idaho Panhandle National Forest. That doesn’t include installation.
Houghton said the Forest Service has switched to vandal-resistant outhouses in most of its campgrounds. In the long run, she said, it’s far cheaper than replacing outhouses destroyed by pickups, fire, gun blasts, lumber-chewing porcupines and - in at least one North Idaho case - pipe bombs.
But, Houghton cautioned, even the strongest building is no match for the most determined despoiler.
“There isn’t anything that’s vandal-proof. That’s just not possible.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color Photo