Groups Rush to ‘Adopt,’ Clean State Roadsides

Is this the sort of behavior one would expect from a bunch of frat boys?

A couple of times a month, the gang at UC Irvine’s Pi Kappa Phi fraternity heads out to a rolling stretch of California 73 in Newport Beach to pick up bottles, newspapers, fast-food wrappers and other trash scattered along the highway.

No, this isn’t some sort of hazing ritual. The brothers of Pi Kappa Phi are one of more than 700 groups up and down California taking part in the state’s fledgling “adopt-a-highway” program.

Participants are typically assigned a 2-mile stretch of highway, given white hard hats and bright orange vests, instructed on safety procedures and then set loose to keep their adopted strip of asphalt free of litter. Each group gets a tangible reward: Its name is emblazoned on a 7-by-4-foot sign posted along their little piece of the freeway.

“Ultimately, we could be to the point where virtually every highway in the state is adopted,” said Ralph Carhart, statewide director of the program for the California Department of Transportation. “It’s actually a lot of fun. My own Rotary Club has adopted a highway and we get lobbyists and physicians out there picking up litter and joking about being mistaken for prisoners. They have a ball.”

While the year-old program has drawn the usual assortment of Rotary clubs, Boy Scout troops and other service organizations, it has also attracted an eclectic mix of participants, including a gay and lesbian church in West Hollywood, a retired school principal who scours a 15-mile swath of California 330 outside rural Running Springs in the Big Bear area, off-road motorcycle clubs, even a nudist group that has adopted a strip of Interstate 15 in San Bernardino County.

Hollywood has also chipped in. Bo Derek has occasionally joined a group of fellow homeowners that keeps a stretch of highway in Santa Ynez Valley clean and actress Bette Midler has inquired about adopting a patch of pavement in Los Angeles, state officials say.

Eager for some good publicity or simply for a chance to do some good, businesses large and small have joined the effort, among them real estate firms, car dealerships, law firms and even a broad slate of McDonald’s restaurants.

“I do a lot of running, and when I run over trash that’s from McDonald’s, it bothers me a bit,” said Ross Pollard, who owns four of the restaurants in southern Orange County. “In my own little way, this makes me feel better.”

One group of entrepreneurs in Orange County has created its own Adopt-a-Highway Maintenance Corp. The company dispatches professional cleanup crews hired by dozens of clients to tackle the trash on congested freeways deemed too dangerous for the average group of volunteers.

The statewide highway cleanup effort has already proven to be more than a drop in the trash can.

Thus far, 1,200 miles of the state’s 15,000 miles of highway have been spoken for. So many groups have offered to pitch in that the state Department of Transportation, which oversees the program, has had a backlog of orders for the placards.

“It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s gratifying,” said Barbara Stovall, community improvement chairwoman at the Julian Woman’s Club, which cleans up 10 miles along two state highways leading into the hillside hamlet in San Diego County. “It shows that there are people in the community that do care, and I think that makes everyone feel good.”

Caltrans officials conservatively estimate that the effort is providing the state the equivalent of 100 full-time workers and is saving about $2 million a year. The volunteers allow maintenance crews to spend more time mending guardrails and patching potholes.

But even the most avid promoters acknowledge that the adopt-a-highway program, which was launched in Texas five years ago and has spread to 40 states, has far to go before California’s highways are free of trash. More than $25 million is still spent by Caltrans each year to pick up the 4.4 billion pieces of trash--162 pieces per person--that officials estimate are tossed onto streets and highways annually.

State officials remain convinced that their adoption plan can make a dent in the dumping grounds along highways, particularly along the rural swaths where the demands for trash pickup tend to be lower.

Los Angeles and Ventura counties have 88 participants, while the Caltrans district covering San Diego and the border region has about 90. Orange County, the state’s smallest Caltrans district, has nearly 20 groups out working or waiting to adopt.

The Stockton office, which covers eight counties, has 120 in the fold, while the stretch between Santa Barbara and Monterey has more than 100 organizations participating.

“I think it’s bringing a lot of civic pride to a lot of little townships,” said Frank Lishey, coordinator of the program in San Bernardino and western Riverside counties. “Many of these groups keep the roads immaculate.”

Under the program, an organization or individual takes care of a particular road for a two-year period. Generally, they are assigned a 2-mile segment, although some groups tackle a longer stretch. Each group must agree to clean the entire length at least four times a year, but some are much more ambitious.

The groups must stick to the sides of the road and are prohibited from cleaning the median. Volunteers also must leave the chore of cleaning very curvy or narrow sections of highway to paid contractors.

So far, the adopt-a-highway program has had a commendable safety record across the nation. No one has been killed or injured in California, and nationwide the only death occurred in Texas.

The biggest controversy generated by the program has been in North Carolina, where a gay rights group has sued the state for refusing to fully recognize the group. The state also drew headlines in 1989 when it refused the Ku Klux Klan permission to adopt a road through a predominantly black neighborhood.

In California, there has been no such hubbub. The state prohibits political groups from participating in the program, and the closest brush with that restriction has been a decision to allow Beyond War, an anti-military group, to take on a highway in the forests of the state’s far north.

The trash cleanup program has spawned other efforts. Caltrans recently initiated an adopt-a-wall program to clean gang graffiti marring various freeways. In more rural areas, the state has tried to woo groups interested in adopting drab parcels along the highway and planting them with native wildflowers and trees. So far, about 100 acres have been sown.

Along a 7-acre spread between some freeway ramps along U.S. 101 in Goleta, S&S; Seeds Co. of Carpinteria has planted a mix of more than 15 annuals and perennials, including California poppy, arroyo lupin, Shasta daisies and white yarrow.

“By May, it should be at its prime,” said Bruce Berlin, project manager for S&S; Seeds. “Sure, it’s good publicity for us, but we’re also interested in getting native wildflowers going a little more.”

Some businesses, however, don’t figure to get anything out of it. John Estuhr runs a specialty gift production firm, Imagine, near California 133 in the bucolic canyon running to Laguna Beach. He and co-owner Nan Going have taken on a 2-mile segment of the road, hitting the pavement twice a month with plastic garbage bags in hand.

“It doesn’t do anything for our business since we sell directly to stores, but maybe it makes our neighbors respect us a little more,” Estuhr reasons. “I think it’s a great program. The more litter-conscious people are, the better. I just don’t think most people think when they throw trash out the window.”

Members of Los Pretots Desert Club, a group of dune buggy and off-road motorcycle enthusiasts that took on a stretch of California 78 in the desert near Ocotillo Wells, saw the program as a chance to challenge the negative stereotype many people hold about their sport.

“We need positive recognition for a change,” said Richard Tiernan, a member of the group. “Every once in a while we’d get a group together and sweep the area. So when this came up we thought we’d get some credit for what we’re doing anyway.”

The work can be grueling. For groups in the desert, summer temperatures can rise to 120 degrees, making a cleanup day impossible. The Julian Women’s Club, meanwhile, fights snow during the winter.

Aches and pains are part of the payment. Jim Sims, for instance, has taken on the heady task of cleaning California 330 leading into Running Springs. Sims gets out at least once a week, combing the gravel roadside with a nifty trigger-handled pickup stick.

“I can’t believe some of the sore muscles I’ve had,” said Sims, 56, who retired from the local school district in June. “It’s mostly very hard work. But an area you clean doesn’t stay that way too long. You should see what happened over the Christmas vacation. It looks like Times Square at each of the turnouts.”

For some people, the highway cleanup routine is second nature. Doyle and Dorreh Dunham have always taken time to clean a milelong stretch of road leading from their rural, 10-acre spread in Atascadero to U.S. 101. Now they’ve adopted a piece of the busy highway itself.

“We’ve had a good response. People honk and smile and wave,” he said. “I’m not an environmental fanatic. I will still spray a bug if I think it will eat my garden. But I feel we’ve got to live here, and if we’re not going to take care of it, no one will.”