Letter: Not asking too much for people to pick up after selves in Oil Patch

It is obviously not breaking news that we have a trash problem in the Oil Patch.

Regardless, it is still an increasingly frustrating problem. Is it really that hard for folks to clean up after themselves?

I don’t aim to point fingers at anybody in particular. My point is that anybody passing down our highways and back roads should really care about the mess they choose to leave because I doubt they would like the same mess in their own front yards.

I have a great view of Highway 85 activity from my front window. A few days ago, two trucks each transporting a mobile home were traveling north when the truck in the rear blew two trailer tires. They pulled onto the shoulder of the highway with one of the trucks blocking our approach into our yard. They did the job of fixing the problem, then left the mess for us residents to pick up as they went on their merry way.

While I understand that getting back on the highway was probably a good priority, a simple and fast task of picking up the litter of insulation and tires (one of which was dropped right where it was changed) should not have been too much to expect.

Half of the mess was directly where they had to walk back and forth between the trucks, while the other half of the mess was well within walking distance of picking up.

With the North Dakota wind, most of this junk would end up in our yard and stuck on our fences, while the tires would make fine threats to the hay cutting machines that take to the road ditch in the summer.

It is a recurrent thing in the ditches, city streets, fields, pastures and parking lots.

A little bit of courtesy would be great. This isn’t just my yard I am asking folks to respect, it’s our state. Just because we are the land of milk and honey right now doesn’t mean we have to pig it out while we are here, no matter who we are, how long we have lived here or how long we plan to be here. In the end, this is still a place many people call home. Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone would treat it as they would their own?

A proud native (albeit sometimes frustrated) resident of North Dakota,

Julie Reis, Fairfield

Tags: opinion, letter, letters, fairfield, oil, patch