Trash detail, vandalism repairs, caring for artifacts - there's less and less federal money to do it all

by Phoebe Sweet, Las Vegas SUN

Last year more than 1 million people visited Red Rock Canyon, a national
conservation area near Las Vegas, and each one left a little something
behind.

They brought about 800,000 cars, as well as PowerBar wrappers, water bottles
and booted feet.

As on the rest of the nearly 48 million acres of public land in Nevada, a
few federal employees are responsible for making sure the debris is
deposited in its proper place, that historic and prehistoric artifacts such
as petroglyphs are protected and that sensitive desert plant and animal life
is safe from the effects of an increasing number of visitors.

But as federal budgets for care of public lands shrink, so do the numbers of
employees protecting the land. The burden of picking up trash, monitoring
cultural artifacts and repairing vandalism increasingly falls on volunteers.