By Fred Voltz
For at least two years, Carson-Tahoe (C-T) Health’s Cancer Center has had periodic trash explosions on its parking lot because of wildlife’s ability to access the unsecured dumpsters for the ‘free food.’
Without any evidence or research, it was presumed by management that homeless people were causing the trash problems. Instead, it now appears one or more bears came from the adjacent foothills in search of readily-available food. C-T Health’s delayed reaction: Consume scarce public funds and request a Nevada Department of Wildlife trap on site, which was unsuccessful in imprisoning, relocating or killing a bear.
Let’s acknowledge the stark fact that wildlife species (not just bears) have been artificially lured into urban areas by gross human negligence in handling human trash.
Legal Liability
From a purely legal standpoint, does any enterprise want the attendant liability, bad press, prospective law suits for damages or potential for needless injury to employees, patients or visitors if a human being unexpectedly encounters negligently-induced wildlife and the interaction ends poorly for all concerned?
Tahoe Basin is Another Example of Irresponsible Behavior
The Tahoe Basin has had a multi-year epidemic of unsecured human trash drawing wildlife from the wild into urban areas, jeopardizing public health and safety, as well as the best interests of wildlife’s survival. The conflicts created in that community because patchwork local control has failed to make a material difference suggests the Tahoe Regional Planning Authority should step in and take action. They have so far resolutely refused to do so.
Absent Management at C-T Health
After bringing the local situation to the attention of C-T Health’s management and two members of its Board of Directors, the string of manufactured excuses included: “If we have any further problems, we will look into installing wildlife-proof trash dumpsters. In the meantime, we will install cameras, and, by the way, we are following the municipal code. We at C-T Health have no responsibility for prudent trash handling at the properties we own, but lease to other medical providers. We will have our security guards (untrained in how to handle wildlife) patrol more often.”
A rational thinker would assess these utterances as sidestepping the real issue of poor human trash containment and the obvious need to take action that appropriately secures the trash now, rather than waiting for more problems to surface.
If a human patient presents symptoms of prospective heart attacks, would the C-T health care providers say “If you have a heart attack, we will then prescribe some medicine, or conduct a surgery to make you better, but we won’t do anything until the heart attack occurs.” Of course not, but this is the same flawed logic being applied to an obvious problem of unsecured trash by one of the largest, non- government operations in Carson City.
A survey of the various C-T Health facilities, both at the north Carson campus and the Fleischman complex, revealed each of the trash dumpsters are accessible by anything or anybody. The food odors from the dumpsters are easily discovered by wildlife species with senses of smell far more acute than any human.
How Others in the Community Manage Their Trash
To its credit, the Eagle Valley Children’s Home, sited in the same vicinity as the north Carson C-T Health campus, recently switched its trash container to a wildlife proof one; however, it has propped the lid open, allowing access by smaller wildlife species such as birds, raccoons, possums, etc. Regrettably, even the Children’s Home hasn’t fully solved its wildlife-unsecured trash problem, but has made far more progress than C-T Health.
Interested in how other parts of the commercial Carson City community are handling their trash, the large, local grocery stores seemed appropriate for review.
In each case, their trash dumpsters are fully enclosed and secured, with a direct feed from the inside of the stores to the dumpsters. Why can’t C-T Health employ such an obvious solution? At the very least, wildlife-proof dumpsters could become standard at all of C-T Health’s facilities.
Needed Changes in Public Policy
This unfortunate situation of indifferent trash management at C-T Health suggests that when the Waste Management franchise comes up for review next year by the Board of Supervisors, the Carson community needs to look at how all of Carson City secures and disposes of its trash if unwanted human/wildlife interactions are to be minimized.
What You Can Do
Perhaps if enough members of the community let C-T Health’s CEO, Ed Epperson, know that this cavalier attitude toward handling the trash his facilities generate is unacceptable, appropriate trash- handling practices will be implemented to keep wildlife in the wild and the people at its facilities safe from unwanted wildlife interactions.
Mr. Epperson can be reached through his Administrative Manager, Jan Hewitt, at 775-445- 8665.
Carson Now reached out to Carson Tahoe Health and received the following statement:
Statement from Carson Tahoe Health
The submitted letter omits or incorporates a number of misstatements. There has been a single incident this year and Carson Tahoe implemented guidelines provided by wildlife and local authorities. Carson Tahoe maintains a total of 5 dumpsters on its campus. Many of the receptacles mentioned by the writer are owned by private businesses that happen to be near the hospital campus, and are not under the control of CTH.
Questions can be directed to info@carsontahoe.org.
