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- Newsgroups: rec.backcountry
- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tamsun.tamu.edu!rigel.tamu.edu!jag9931
- From: jag9931@rigel.tamu.edu (GLENNON, JOHN ALAN)
- Subject: Re: Long-term cave exploration - waste disposal?
- Message-ID: <1992Nov20.205106.3779@tamsun.tamu.edu>
- Summary: cave dumping
- Sender: news@tamsun.tamu.edu (Read News)
- Organization: Texas A&M University, College Station
- Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1992 20:50:00 GMT
- Lines: 20
-
- S.W. Marlatt writes:
- >I belive some of the urine is allowed to be
- >dumped in the cave, in selected areas. This is becoming fairly
- >routine in many large caves (e.g. Wind, Jewel, Lech, Carlsbad, etc.),
- >as a natural outgrowth of the increasing numbers of people caving
- >these days. (If you don't cave, don't start! It's really nothing to
- >get excited about.)
-
- I have worked at all three parks mentioned: Jewel Cave, Wind Cave, and
- Carlsbad, and none of them allow any type of human waste dumping in any
- part of the cave. ALL human waste is carried out. Apparently, it was
- once a practice to leave human waste in Lechuguilla (urine in a bucket),
- with the thought that the urine would evaporate. From what I have heard,
- the urine has not evaporated, and one of the base camps stinks to
- "high heaven".
- The Park Service has closed Lechuguilla Cave temporarily to exploration
- while such resource management issues are examined.
-
- -Alan Glennon
-
-