October 30, 2011

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As I was leaving the beach at the Agate Beach wayside access, I saw 5-7 wood pallets stacked at the top of one of the paths down to the beach from the small/west side parking lot at Agate Beach wayside. As I went to my car, I noticed a large pickup w/a small open trailer filled w/wood pallets. At least 3 people were carrying these pallets out onto the beach.It's legal to build fires on that beach, but these were pallets, there are already piles of rusting nails, half exposed, sometimes covered by sand over parts of this beach. These heaps of rusting nails are the product of the thoughtless, selfish & just stupid habit of some people using pallets for their fires. They never think to pull the nails before tossing the wood on the fire (and taking the nails w/them, at least as far as one of the many trash cans located in either of the wayside's parking lots) or bringing a magnet to remove all the nails after the fire has died down.Most of the piles are w/in about 100 feet of the small parking lot on the west side of the street. Or where many people w/their dogs & children walk on their way to get closer to the ocean. I telephoned both the state police and the new state parks ranger, Bryan (or Brian) and asked them to speak to these people re: using pallets for firewood because of the hazard the nails pose to beach users. I was able to leave only a message for the ranger, he was probably off duty by around 5:30pm.I called the state police rather than the Newport city police as I have been told on other occasions that because it's a state park area, OSP is responsible for enforcing laws, etc., even though it's located w/Newport city limits. However, I have observed that sometimes the OSP dispatch calls the Newport police & asks them, as a courtesy, to check on whatever problem has been reported.While the OSP dispatcher I spoke to said that he would "notify the troopers in that area" I suspect no one bothered/had more important things to do. I provided the license plate number of the trailer to both the dispatcher & the state parks beach ranger.