Who’s responsible for littering North Fork?

On the Shoshone County Sheriff’s Department Facebook wall, there’s a debate occurring re: who are the slobs trashing the popular North Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River — locals, Kootenai County residents or Washington residents. A Shoshone County posse member did a license check on three weekend days this month (July 2, 23 & 24). And discovered that the majority of the vehicles along the North Fork on those days were from Kootenai County and Washington state. He calculated that 75% of the trash was caused by Kootenai County or out-of-state residents. But Sheriff Mitch Alexander responded: Not so fast. The sheriff isn’t pointing fingers: “Although we have high numbers of out of staters and out of county users, blaming it on Washington and or Kootenai is not right.” Here’s the vehicle count:

• July 2nd Sat. (in 16 miles of travel): Washington vehicles, 68; Kootenai, 43; Shoshone 12.
• July 23 Sat. (10 miles travel): Washington vehicles, 138; Kootenai, 127; Shoshone, 28.
• July 24 Sun (8 miles travel): Washington vehicles, 78; Kootenai, 71; Shoshone, 31.

Although Sheriff Mitch is reluctant to say it, Huckleberries isn’t. A lot of evidence exists in those numbers to suggest that residents from Kootenai County and Washington (read: Spokane County) are responsible for a lot of the mess along the North Fork. F’shame.