FILLMORE : Boy Scout, 16, Targets Graffiti in Eagle Project

After earning 36 merit badges in traditional subjects like archery, basketry and wilderness survival, Justin Burnett of Fillmore chose to fight graffiti in the wilderness as his final Boy Scout project.

The 16-year-old Justin, a senior at Fillmore High School, led a group of 14 youthful volunteers up Santa Paula Creek on Friday. Equipped with a sandblaster and paintbrushes, the crew of Fillmore youngsters carefully removed and painted over the dozens of initials that others had scrawled on boulders, cliff faces and trees.

The sandblasting work is tedious and painstaking, said 17-year-old Jason Carr as he helped erase graffiti from a rock outcrop.

“You have to hold the nozzle a half-inch away from the rock for it to work well,” Jason said as he fed sand into the machine. “And the sand constantly pounds your legs.”

While one team handled the sandblaster, another team of volunteers mixed drab gray and tan paint, brushing it over patches of graffiti as a form of camouflage.

Although he has hiked up Santa Paula Creek more than a dozen times over the years, Justin said he had never seen so much graffiti along the stream-fed creek as this year.

“When I heard about the graffiti, it made me disappointed,” he said. “I’d like to keep the creek nice like I’ve always known it.”

Justin, a member of Boy Scout Explorer Post 2411, planned the anti-graffiti outing as his Eagle Project, the last hurdle before achieving Scouting’s highest rank, Eagle Scout.

If he is successful, Justin will join his brother Myron as his family’s third generation of Eagle Scouts. His father, Mike Burnett, and grandfather, Carl Stephens, also earned Boy Scouting’s highest rank.

Also like his father, Justin will have earned 15 more merit badges than the 21 needed to qualify for Eagle Scout.

The biggest hurdle in organizing the graffiti removal, Justin said, was recruiting enough volunteers on the same day that some Fillmore Scouts were attending the livestock auction at the Ventura County Fair.

But as his crew uncovered the sandstone and shale rock beneath the graffiti, Justin judged the work a success.

“They’re doing a great job,” Justin said.