Bumper Drag helps borough shed

tons of metal

By RINDI WHITE/Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU -- If there's an added sense of lightness in the air this week, it could be because Mat-Su land lost a significant amount of weight over the weekend.

Nearly 370 junk vehicles, 87 tons of scrap metal, and 367 appliances were hauled, towed, dragged away or otherwise dropped off at two collection sites over the weekend, as part of the Mat-Su Borough's annual Bumper Drag cleanup.

The event is a coordinated effort between the borough, the Alaska Army National Guard, local towing companies and community groups aimed at cleaning up properties in the Mat-Su.

For the Alaska Army National Guard, the event has grown from a weekend exercise to an incident readiness training event -- recognized and approved by the National Guard Bureau.

Once involving only Bravo Company of the Guard's 297th Support Battalion, the event now involves the full battalion and serves as both a training event and a method of community outreach.

"Part of the push, in the National Guard, is we're in the Valley -- this is where the Guard exists. It helps the community actually see their soldiers, who are here in the community actually doing events in the community they live in," said Maj. Katrina Pillow, who worked in the Guard's strategic command center at Alcantra Armory over the weekend.

The training aspect of the event, Guard members said, is equally valuable.

"It's a unique training event for us, because we get to work with civilian agencies, which is great training and communications for us," said Capt. Kelly Nichols. "And it gives them time on the vehicles -- the more time on the vehicles, the better they're going to be."

More than 40 people around the Mat-Su's core area, as well as property owners in the Sutton and Chickaloon area, signed up to have vehicles, scrap metal and appliances removed from their property by the Guard.

The removal entailed a significant planning effort, with Guard members visiting remote sites to plan the recovery.

More than 80 soldiers worked Friday through Sunday on recovery efforts around the Valley, bringing in more than half the vehicles, appliances and scrap metal brought in over the weekend.

Nichols said Guard members hauled in 245 vehicles, more than 300 appliances and about 45 tons of scrap metal over the weekend.

"These guys take community service to a whole new level, and it's really appreciated at the Mat-Su Borough," said Jane Dale, who coordinates the event for the borough.

Although vehicles can be taken to local wrecking yards all throughout the year, the cleanup event is a chance for people with a lot of vehicles or scrap metal, people whose vehicles are in areas that preclude easy removal or people who simply can't afford to have their vehicles towed away privately to clean up their property.

"I heard about it for a couple of years and kind of missed the chance," said Palmer-Fishhook Road resident Dan Chapman, who introduced himself as "Fat Dan" to Guard members Saturday. "I set out this year to do it and got an application. I took other applications and handed them out around in my neighborhood."

Twenty-one vehicles were removed from Chapman's property -- including the Guard's prize of the day, a rusted white Greyhound-style bus that had been set aside on Chapman's property by a relative who had intended to turn it into an RV.

Chapman said he collected some of the vehicles himself, but many came from friends and family members who asked Chapman if they could store their broken-down vehicles on his property.

Chapman said he would have eventually cleaned up the property himself, but having the Guard come in allowed all the work to be done in a short period of time.

Guard members such as Sgt. Tim Straub, who helped orchestrate the initial cleanup events, expressed hope that in the future, the Guard will have to move on to other training exercises.

"We're just finally cleaning up after 20 years of letting things go," Straub said. "Once we help the community get a handle on it, they can pick it up and go on."

Straub and a few other Guard members who live in the Valley started the event after doing informal recovery efforts in the Jim Creek area.

When the load got to be too great, Straub said, he called Ken Hudson, the borough's chief code compliance officer, who helped get a coordinated effort started.

From its start at Jim Creek eight years ago, the effort has grown exponentially. In addition to more Guard members taking part, the event has garnered more support from community groups and from the borough.

David Jones, of Bones Jones Taxidermy in Sutton, said Sutton community members really pulled together in their support of the event.

It's a lot of work to coordinate, he said -- Jones helped fix global- positioning-system coordinates for some of the vehicles picked up in the Sutton and Chickaloon area. He said he hopes to see Guard members in the area in another two to three years.

"We'd like to see them continue coming out here at least over two to three years," Jones said. "A lot of people buy an old clunker and, when it breaks down, they put it in their front yard and can't afford to have it hauled out because they're living paycheck to paycheck. I know -- I've done it, too."

Contact Rindi White at rindi.white@frontiersman.com.