Volunteers clean up trash at migrant site

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.31.2009

About 50 volunteers helped Arizona Department of Environmental Quality and Coronado National Forest officials clean up trash near Madera Canyon on Saturday morning.

The volunteers, from Green Valley and Nogales, picked up about 3,000 pounds of trash likely discarded by illegal immigrants, who frequently travel through the area near the foothills of the Santa Rita Mountains, said Mark Shaffer, a spokesman for the environmental department.
Madera Canyon is about 13 miles southeast of Green Valley.

It took the group about four hours to clean the site, Shaffer said.

This event concluded the first year of the department's Undocumented Migrant Trail Cleanup Program, which targets "lay-up" areas where illegal immigrants discard their possessions before receiving rides from smugglers.

The program has sponsored cleanups in the mountains above Sierra Vista, along the Santa Cruz River near Tubac, in the Arivaca area, and near Douglas and Yuma, he said.

The trash at Madera Canyon consisted mostly of discarded backpacks, clothes and plastics. It filled 85 biohazard trash bags, he said.
The cleanups will resume next fall, he said.

http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/295132