Cleanup Begins at Burning Man Site: a Few Abandoned Cars, Plus a Burned-Out RV (rgj.com) 42
Late Friday a Burning Man press release claimed that "zero stuck or abandoned vehicles remain on site or on the exit road, as people have returned with friends and tow trucks to retrieve them."
But the Reno Gazette-Journal reports that as of 5 p.m. Friday, "at least a half-dozen vehicles were still scattered across miles of the Black Rock National Conservation Area, public land Burning Man leases from the Bureau of Land Management. Their drivers appeared to have made a run for the exit and got stuck in mud out on the playa. One burned-out RV that caught fire in the exit queue was still on site."
The press release from the Burning Man project claimed their entire community of attendees, sometimes called "Black Rock City," had now "disappeared, leaving no trace." But the Reno Gazette-Journal says... Entire abandoned camps were still in what had been Black Rock City, the temporary encampment that draws more than 70,000 burners each year. Tents, garbage bags, rugs, boxes, boots stuck in mud, a barbecue grill, cans of oil and even a wig were seen on Friday. Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen estimated there were still up to 10,000 people on site Thursday but a steady stream of RVS and cars continued to leave the playa... Burning Man did not return request for comment... "I am concerned about this year and the amount of stuff being left out," Allen told the Reno Gazette-Journal on Friday. "Dispatch has told me that in the last two days a lot of (car and truck) rental agencies and motor home businesses are looking for their vehicles still out there...
On Friday, the site was busy with campers who were cleaning up sites. Some abandoned camps sites had signs that said they would return. One sign said, "We will come back Thur. Fri. Sat. to clean up. Too many sick people."
The newspaper points out that event volunteers traditionally spend three weeks after the event doing a major clean-up effort. "The restoration crews they have doing that do an outstanding job," a public affairs specialist for the Bureau of Land Management told the newspaper.
But the Reno Gazette-Journal reports that as of 5 p.m. Friday, "at least a half-dozen vehicles were still scattered across miles of the Black Rock National Conservation Area, public land Burning Man leases from the Bureau of Land Management. Their drivers appeared to have made a run for the exit and got stuck in mud out on the playa. One burned-out RV that caught fire in the exit queue was still on site."
The press release from the Burning Man project claimed their entire community of attendees, sometimes called "Black Rock City," had now "disappeared, leaving no trace." But the Reno Gazette-Journal says... Entire abandoned camps were still in what had been Black Rock City, the temporary encampment that draws more than 70,000 burners each year. Tents, garbage bags, rugs, boxes, boots stuck in mud, a barbecue grill, cans of oil and even a wig were seen on Friday. Pershing County Sheriff Jerry Allen estimated there were still up to 10,000 people on site Thursday but a steady stream of RVS and cars continued to leave the playa... Burning Man did not return request for comment... "I am concerned about this year and the amount of stuff being left out," Allen told the Reno Gazette-Journal on Friday. "Dispatch has told me that in the last two days a lot of (car and truck) rental agencies and motor home businesses are looking for their vehicles still out there...
On Friday, the site was busy with campers who were cleaning up sites. Some abandoned camps sites had signs that said they would return. One sign said, "We will come back Thur. Fri. Sat. to clean up. Too many sick people."
The newspaper points out that event volunteers traditionally spend three weeks after the event doing a major clean-up effort. "The restoration crews they have doing that do an outstanding job," a public affairs specialist for the Bureau of Land Management told the newspaper.
Ignore the article (Score:5, Informative)
None of this is a problem for burning man management.
Firstly, cleanup from the event typically takes weeks of volunteer work: people go out and scrupulously check the area for moop and burn marks, digging up and carrying away as needed.
Secondly, although there were a lot of problems at BM this year none of them were from management. Management runs through various scenarios ahead of time and has detailed plans on what to do. I know this first hand from seeing how things are run "behind the curtain" at several of the events, and the people there are surprisingly top notch. (Rain on the last day? You're stuck on the playa for two more days and this will screw with your schedule. Sucks to be you, but it happens.)
Thirdly, a couple of cars and a burned-out camper is basically nothing to them. I suspect they'll excavate the cars and tow them out to the BM staging area and contact the owners. There are *lots* of maintenance vehicles (skip loaders, cranes, and such) onsite that could do that in a heartbeat.
Having participated in cleanup, I know from firsthand experience that there are several hundred bikes left after the event. How many bikes does it take to equal the junk mass of a car? Or a forgotten steel burn pit and cords of burnt logs and embers?
The article is just click-bait tending to outrage.
Ignore it.
Re: Ignore the article (Score:3, Insightful)
If I had moderator points, I would +1 you. Everything you said here is correct. The article is trying to stir stuff up where there is nothing to stir.
Re:Ignore the article (Score:5, Insightful)
I have to agree with you. The last time I read about something similar to this was the Fyre Festival, and before that, it was the mess left by the pipeline protestors.
The latter two were far worse. The pipeline protest mess was actually a bad move on their part, because it threatened to contaminate and pollute the very waterways they were advocating to protect.
At least here you have professional/volunteer clean up crews that will do what's necessary. I mean, consider that people are considerate enough to put signs up on their campsites that they'll be back to finish cleaning up. Now, I figure that a percentage of those will turn into abandoned sites, but especially with the one that had the sign "too many sick people", well, shit happens, and might be part of the problem(rampant diarrhea for the sickness).
That said, I'd still be a bit irked, especially for things like bikes left there - I was taught to pack out at least what I packed in. Preferably leave the area cleaner than it was when I went there. So yes, I've cleaned up after less considerate campers many times.
But again, shit happens, maybe the bike got lost, stolen then discarded by somebody else, maybe the person was hung over and forgot it, etc...
The important part is that there's a plan and people to do the final cleanup.
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Re:Ignore the article (Score:5, Insightful)
Precisely. I lead a camp there. We stayed an extra half-day so our vehicles could roll, did our extensive "MOOP" sweep to ensure we left *no* trash on our site (or part of the road in front of us), and got in line to exit.
We saw a *few* abandoned vehicles while exiting (people who drove in mud and/or not on the Gate road when they were told to stay). A few vehicles out of 40,000 vehicles on site during the event is a nothing-burger.
I'm sure there will be more trash than usual this year for Restoration crews to clean up. Not just based on the rushed exits for some, but also due to temporary tire ruts giving more places for small bits of trash to hide. Also, it was going to be a "moopier" year already, I believe due to larger last-minute "burgin" crowd this year than normal -- many core people took this year off after last year's heat, leaving camps scrambling to find and quickly acculturate newbies.
But from what I saw on-site with our camp, our neighbors, camps we walked past during the last few days, and on the way out, burners are doing what burners do -- building a city, tearing it down, and leaving no trace. I have full faith that Resto volunteers and staff will do what they always do and pick up the slack for the minority of the participants who don't care about the playa or the communities around them.
Except (Score:1)
Shit like this happens EVERY YEAR at BM.
Stuff COMPLETELY antithetical to what BM's SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT.
And shuffling this as "Not the management's problem", the hell it isn't.
They continue to put on this ongoing trash disaster, YEAR AFTER YEAR, knowing it's ALWAYS going to turn out this way.
Regardless of the environmental/ecological damage it does.
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Re: Ignore the article (Score:1)
Donâ(TM)t trust your lying eyes, there is no trash. What are you on? This has been well known for decades, burning man leaves behind a ton of trash which someone else has to clean up. Some rich people go play in the sand, burn humanity in effigy and leave.
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People are selfish morons who will just dump their rubbish and run, expecting someone else to clean it up.
Go to the site of a festival, no matter how mainstream, such as Glastonbury the day after it's finished and witness a field full of refuse and detritus. Everything from human waste to entirely serviceable tents just abandoned because people are too lazy to pick up their own junk after themselves.
Noone Cares (Score:4, Funny)
Only people who go to Burning Man care about Burning Man.
And many of those pulled out a few weeks prior due to poor behavior on the Festival's part and fears of bad Karma.
And apparently...
There's people who care... (Score:3)
There were apparently people who cared enough to block the highway to burning man this year as a form of climate protest, only to have the local rangers ram it out of the way.
Never seen somebody get themselves unhandcuffed so fast when the truck locked to be coming around for another pass.
Re:There's people who care... (Score:5, Insightful)
That was among the funniest videos I've seen in a whole. Give that ranger a medal: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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I wonder what those morons were thinking. Did they think people in the blocked traffic (while burning gas sitting idle) would say "wow! Thanks for the inconvenience let's stop buring fossil fuels." And btw they even blocked an emergency vehicle.
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Same mechanism as terrorists employ, except they use force rather than violence.
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"I assume that ranger was immediately fired upon review of that video because he's a nutjob that shouldn't be behind the wheel?"
They should be glad that ramming their blockade is ALL they did, being on tribal lands means your ass has a different set of laws to follow, and it could've simply gone shooty-shooty for the protesters, instead.
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Murder is still illegal. These aren't lawless areas
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You do not block roads without a permit to block traffic. If you do, you should be arrested. Which is what happened.
On top of that, they were blocking the road on reservation land- which is like going to a foreign nation as a U.S. citizen and blocking the roads.
It's a real eff around and find out situation.
I get why the protesters are doing it. Anyone under 45 is screwed. It's too late to fix it and on top of that people are denying it's happening and continuing to dump 40 gigatons of carbon per year
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Anyone under 45 is screwed
Solving AGW is being blocked by political not technical reasons. We have a working solution, we have had this solution for decades. Its call nuclear power which can make more than just electricity. We are literally being killed by scientific ignorance. And the protesters are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
That is pure B.S. (Score:2)
Its call nuclear power which can make more than just electricity.
That is pure B.S.
Nuclear electricity represents ~9% of global electricity generation, trending down.
It does not scale to 100%. Uranium and other nuclear fuels are limited and non-renewable fossil fuels (fossils from stars, in fact)
Nuclear electricity costs 4 to 10x more than any other electricity source, and this is the reason it is shrinking.
Pointless obsolete stuff.
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I think we're supposed to be worried about the dry lake bed for some reason.
The new "what about the children omg" meme!! (Score:2)
What about the dry lake bed does sound more like this century.
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At this point it's simply lost the ideology that got it up and running.
Now it's simply a cool thing for socially woke fake-environmental culture leeches to show up and be seen at.
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I'm so glad you appreciate it!
Truth often is.
slow news month? (Score:2)
Nearly every burn something unusual happens. This time it was rain. Lots of COVID too, but that's not unusual now. It was actually much better than people expected; for example, normally every tow truck company in the world refuses to come to Burning Man, but there were many this year, and many people pulling others out of the mud. Even though the only people that got stuck in the mud were the morons who tried to leave when they were told not to.
Overall, the only seriously bad thing that happened at the bur
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The media must be bored out of their fucking minds to report on this.
Not a problem. They'll never mention it again so all the people who go there who think they're self-important will never get mentioned. All the sponsors will never be mentioned, none of the "influencers" (who are they "influencing? Stupid people?) will get mentioned, it will be as if it never exists.
I'm certain that's exactly what the folks want.
Considering.. (Score:1)
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Wish it were that simple.
BM has been a massive trash dump EVERY YEAR for nearly a decade now.
An excuse for Rich people to pollute a lot (Score:1)
I'm sorry, but Burning Man has become a travesty. Everyone burns a couple hundred gallons of gasoline to get there. They burn a lot of propane to cook their food on site. They burn a big pile of stuff and dump a bunch of CO2 into the air while many talk about how important the environment. Many others fly in.
It's become a parody of itself.
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> Everyone burns a couple hundred gallons of
> gasoline to get there.
In a word: Bullshit.
Every time I've gone, I've filled my tank exactly three times: once just after leaving home to have a full tank for the drive to Nevada, once in Fernley right after leaving the freeway to arrive at Black Rock with as full a tank possible in case of screwups like this year's, and once in either Reno or South Lake on the way home. That car had a 14.5 gallon tank. So the maximum I could even theoretically have bur
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Please keep rationalizing. It's okay for you to pollute and create co2. it's just bad for other people.
You're special.
Even if *you* were clean, lots of people fly long distances to go to Burning Man. It's part of the problem. It's mainly a party for rich celebrities these days.
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I'm not rationalizing; merely calling out your made-up bullshit. I never claimed to be special. And I never claimed that my own lifestyle is pollution-free. But I've also never burnt the "hundreds of gallons" that you claimed each attendee burns to get there and back.
Like I said, there are legitimate reasons to criticize Burning Man. You chose to ignore those reasons and lie.
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>> I never claimed to be special.
Yes, you did.
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It was counterculture. Now it's well off people and celebrities.
It is a parody. It's a blatant squandering of resources and illegal drug use which is ignored because the crowd is privileged.
It's repellent.
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To say that this is all the burn is now is not only ignorant, it shows if you've ever been that you were doing it wrong and didn't get it.
I don't go to Burning Man for the burners, I don't give one single shit about who they are or what they do. I'm there to burn. That might mean something different to you, I don't know. Burning Man always was and always will be what you make of it.
>It is a parody. It's a blatant squandering of res
Re: An excuse for Rich people to pollute a lot (Score:2)
Counterculture has always been rich people and celebrities. Regular people do not have the time nor the money to spend years laying around, consuming drugs and traveling while lecturing others about their perceived misdeeds in making sure their family survives.
Burning Man needs to end (Score:1)
This event needs to stop. Hopefully it will be banned next year. Organizers should face fines or penalties. This had potential to be worse than it already was. Could've turned into a humanitarian disaster. If it went on longer, imagine emergency services having to feed, provide water, etc to all these people trapped out in the desert?
Then there's the toll on the environment. Look at how much earth was spun up like a drunken redneck mudbogging jamboree? I question whoever allowed this event in the first plac
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I think the fact that it wasn't a humanitarian disaster shows that the organizers are competent enough to run the event.
Let them have their RV-fest in the desert
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That's some wishful thinking. The fact is that the event didn't see much rain this year so the organizers had it easy - but it has rained quite a bit more in that exact area in the past, stranding people for many weeks. Yes, it could very much turn into a humanitarian disaster that would absolutely bankrupt the Burning Man Organization, as well as require FEMA and the national guard