UO students trash Shasta Lake over holiday

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) -- Thousands of college students, many of them from the University of Oregon, left trash in and around the waters at Shasta Lake in California over the Memorial Day weekend.

About 3000 students, including those from UC Davis, descended on Shasta Lake for an "unsponsored and unsanctioned" event, said Amelia Fleitz with the USDA Shasta-Trinity National Forest. The students left 17 bags of trash that took National Forest workers six hours to clean up, with more clean up expected as the lake levels drop.

Among the items they expect to find when the lake drops are cups, water bottles and wrappers.

"This type of trash, when it's left behind, it can just degrade the quality of the habitat for the fish and the wildlife and there is concern of wildlife ingesting the trash," Fleitz told KOIN 6 News.

She said the scene was different when a group of Oregon State students camped over Mother's Day. At that event, about 40 students stayed behind an extra day and cleaned up their entire site.

This kind of trash has happened a few times over the years, but there hasn't been any consideration of banning camping at Shasta Lake.

Still, Fleitz has a request for the students and anyone else who camps at Shasta Lake.

"We encourage the students to use this as a learning opportunity and we encourage them on their future visits to national forests and lands that we ask them the same as all of our other visitors -- that they leave the recreation areas in a better condition than they found it and that will help the stewardship of the land for future generations," she said.