I can always count on my pal Larry Larsen to spot the unusual story. He did it again. This time it is a piece about "trucker bombs." It is not a story for the faint of heart but I have no doubt this is going on everywhere, and I feel sorry for the people who have to clean this up. I will let
MSNBC.com's environmental reporter Miguel Llanos explain:
Roadside litter comes in all shapes and sizes — from dirty diapers to syringes — but there's one category that out-grosses the rest: trucker bombs.
Most drivers whiz along the nation's highways largely oblivious to their roadside surroundings. But next time you are out there, take a closer look.
"As soon as you look for it you'll see it," says Megan Warfield, litter programs coordinator at Washington State's Department of Ecology. "You just see them glistening in the sun. It's just gross."
They are trucker bombs, plastic jugs full of urine tossed by truckers, and even non-truckers, who refuse to make a proper potty stop to relieve themselves.
The state hasn't counted how many such jugs are found each year, but a single, small county decided to do its own tally. "In one year," Warfield says, "one crew found 2,666 bottles of urine, 67 feces-covered items, not including diapers, and 18 syringes."
It even happens at rest stops. "That's the mystery," Warfield says. "There's a bathroom right there, there's also a trash can."
Truckers, for their part, point to a lack of convenient parking areas and an industry that's become more stressful since deregulation in the 1980s.
Urine jugs, says Todd Spencer, executive vice president of the Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, "are an indicator of how much stress and pressure drivers are under." Those factors range from having to get deliveries on time to making up for higher fuel prices by reducing costs elsewhere.
The legal work week for truckers is 60 hours, the former truck driver says, and "the real work week is usually 20 to 30 hours beyond that."
"What actually drives this more than anything else," he adds, "is that the vast majority of drivers are paid only for miles driven," so they cut corners where possible.
Spencer doesn't see much improvement for drivers either, saying companies would have to be forced to improve conditions.
Leigh Strope, a spokeswoman for the Teamsters union, concurs that a major factor is that "many drivers only get paid when the wheels are rolling."
The Washington Department of Ecology even posted warning signs at rest stops after the state passed a bill broadening the definition of "hazardous litter" with higher fines for people who illegally toss jugs of urine and diapers. Washington does periodic litter audits. Go to page 69 of the latest survey for the count of how many trucker bombs they found in the last sampling. Other states have tried to stop the nasty practice.
The MSNBC story said:
Several other states have taken similar steps to stop truckers from dumping containers of urine. Wyoming this year increased the maximum penalty for littering bodily fluid to nine months in jail and a $1,000 fine. The maximum penalty for other litter is six months in jail and a $750 fine.
In April, Colorado increased its "human waste" fine from $40 to $500. Transportation employees convinced lawmakers of the need for the drastic increase with their tales of finding urine jugs as they mowed roadway ditches. "We hit them, they explode. The operator ends up wearing this stuff," Randy Dobyns told state senators.
Dobyns estimated he picks up at least 50 containers a week, sometimes milk jugs, water bottles or even bags filled with urine. "The folks who dispose of this stuff are very creative in their use of containers," he said.
Here is a story on the Colorado bill. The law takes effect July 1.
In 1999, the L.A. Times reported that North Dakota spent $15,000 to equip highway maintenance tractors with shields after workers were splashed by urine 20 to 40 times a year when their mowers hit trucker bomb bottles.
Powdered Baby Formula Thefts
Supermarkets and other retailers are moving powdered baby formula behind the counter, where cigarettes are. It will be no surprise to anybody like me who has had to buy this stuff that it is a shoplifting target because it is so expensive.
A story on the AP wire said:
The high-priced item has long been an attractive target for shoplifters, who typically resell it on the black market at a reduced price or use it to cut drugs.
Now, some supermarkets are fighting back, putting formula under lock and key just as they did with cigarettes many years ago.
"There is a point in time when you have to protect your assets," said Ted Seal, general manager of a Super Fresh store near Bethlehem (Pennsylvania) that locked up its supply about a month ago because thieves had been stealing it by the caseload. Customers who want powdered formula now must ask a manager to unlock a case near the front.
At Albertson's Inc., one of the nation's largest supermarket chains, with more than 2,500 stores in 37 states, often keep a very small quantity on shelves, with signs directing customers to the service counter if they want more.
"It has been a problem for a number of years. People steal baby formula, take it to another store and return it" for cash, said Albertson's spokesman Walt Rubel.
The Food Marketing Institute, an industry group that maintains a list of the 50 most stolen items from supermarkets, said that cases of Similac-brand powdered formula ranked No. 7 and individual cans of Similac followed at No. 8.
Powdered formula typically costs $10 to $30 a can, depending on size and brand, and $75 and up for a case.
By the way, the most stolen items on the
FMI list are, in order, Advil, pregnancy tests, razor blade, camera film, infant formula, and Preparation H. What an odd assortment of stuff, don't you think?
To Taze or Not to Taze
I am passing along a fairly amazing piece of video from the Palm Beach Post.
The Post has produced a series of stories examining whether cops are too quick to fire their taser guns. (Warning: The video is fairly graphic with the woman screaming for a long time after she was hit with the jolt twice. If you are in an office setting, you might want to turn your computer speakers down before hitting play.)
The story is about what started as a routine traffic stop. The officer used a taser twice on the 22-year-old woman. The paper does a great job matching the officer's interview with the video. The website also opens its comments page to a flood of reaction from the public. This is, in my judgment, a great use of the interactive capacity of online.
The IRE Convention
Over the next couple of weeks I will share some of the stories that I saw while at the Investigative Reporters and Editors convention in Denver last week. First, I want to pass along a link to the speech that former CBS anchor Dan Rather made to the convention. The emotional address touched me as Rather called for a renewed dedication to investigative reporting and pressed journalists to educate the public about First Amendment and open records issues beyond how they apply to journalists. Rather was not terribly forthcoming about the scandal involving CBS's reporting on President Bush's military service record. You can hear the entire speech and question and answer session on this KUSA-TV site.
We are always looking for your great ideas. Send Al a few sentences and hot links.
Editor's Note: Al's Morning Meeting is a compendium of ideas, edited story excerpts, and other materials from a variety of websites, as well as original concepts and analysis. When the information comes directly from another source, it will be attributed, and a link will be provided, whenever possible.
Check with the folks who pick these "bombs" up and...
