Campground Staff Left To Clean Up Mess Of Litter After Father’s Day Weekend

Campground staff across Green Country are cleaning up after many people visited campsites for Father's Day weekend and left a mess behind.

Campsite managers say a boost in campers is typically a good thing, but it becomes a problem when those campers start using sites as their own personal landfills.

They said the golden rule of enjoying the outdoors is to leave your site cleaner than when you found it.

Kristy Burkhart, who camped at Fort Cobb Lake this weekend, said more and more people seem to be taking that rule as a suggestion and leave trash everywhere.

"It's way bad, it didn't used to be like that, it really didn't,” Burkhart said. “It was just everywhere. We hit a lot of spots and it was really disappointing.

She said unwanted wildlife has started to take advantage of sloppy campers.

"You don't want to be sitting out in your camp chair in the moonlight and all the sudden you turn around and you have a little family of raccoons in the back of your truck," Burkhart said.

Jim Hassel owns and manages the Stoney Ridge Campgrounds near Skiatook Lake.

"It's time-consuming you know, to pick up after other people. I'm an old-timer. I wasn't born and raised that way myself. My dad and my mom told me to pick up," he said.

Hassel runs a pretty tight ship and people usually keep his camp clean. But sometimes the burden falls on him.

"It's just called respect. You know, respect for other people's property," Hassel said.

Most of the Father's Day cleanup is already done, but campsite managers hope people remember this on Fourth of July.