The city of San Diego cleared about five tons of debris that was left from homeless encampments along the cliffs at Torrey Pines. NBC 7’s Joe Little explains why it may take a week to fully clean up the area.
The city of San Diego on Thursday morning was scheduled to use a helicopter to pick up tons of debris and trash left on the side of the cliffs at Torrey Pines.
What has the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department had in common with environmental services? Not much until now.
“We have to worry about your safety, starting a fire and taking care of the environment," said Franklin Coopersmith, deputy director of Clean SD.
Coopersmith says this week about a dozen members of the city’s environmental services abatement team bagged four to five tons of trash that accumulated on the cliffs above Black’s Beach.
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“It was mostly lots of trash from food wrappers and Rubbermaid trash cans. The average person looking at it would probably say it is an illegal dumping pile,” Coopersmith said.
The deputy director says it was left behind by people living in two homeless encampments. Environmental services has had its eye on it since last August after the encampments were detected. The area is less than a quarter acre.
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Despite having an ambitious abatement team, Coopersmith says it’s too unsafe to have them drag up all that trash by hand. Instead, he is enlisting the help of San Diego Fire-Rescue's cliff rescue team and helicopter, whose job ordinarily is to rescue stranded surfers and hikers. This task is rescuing the environment.
The garbage is now in 45 to 50 vinyl drag bags. Each weighs between 200-400 pounds. Coopersmith says the helicopter will pick up three bags at a time and then drop them in waiting roll out garbage bins in the area of the gliderport parking lot.
The city intentionally waited for rain so that the cleanup wasn’t interfering with wildfire coverage. Coopersmith says this exercise will count toward training hours for the cliff rescue team.
“Rather than practicing on objects out there, they can do this training while doing something to help the city out,“ Coopersmith said.
You couldn’t ask for a more beautiful view, but Coopersmith discourages people to take shelter there. It is equally dangerous with unstable cliffs and the threat of fire.
Environmental services says some seven years ago was the last time a helicopter was used to cleanup and dismantle an encampment. It was also above Black’s Beach and not reachable on foot.
