Community parks provide residents with the ability to see nature as it originally was before cities came to be, but this proximity to the big city often brings with it some negative consequences, which often take more time to fix than they ever did to cause them.

Keep Carter County Beautiful is participating in a clean-up day this Saturday, March 16, in response to a recent trash dump along Panhandle Road, next to Blue Hole Falls.

Beverlie Margle, a local resident, hikes the trails there roughly six times a year, and she discovered the unwanted addition to the sights during a visit this past week.

“It has always been a bit messy here,” Margle said. “There is always something if you look hard enough.”

One pile alone contains two separate, older TVs, two deer corpses, an entire mattress and several bags worth of garbage, all of which teeter towards a slope right next to Mill Creek.

Trash is not the only point of concern, however. Graffiti artists have included penis drawings on the rocks and cliff faces on the roadside leading up to the park.

Margle said she attempted to clean some of it on her own, but she instead discovered a bunch of used needles among the trash the hard way. Several doctor’s visits later to confirm she was not infected with anything, she said she needed the assistance.

“I knew I could not do it all by myself,” she said.

She said many people have already volunteered to participate in the clean-up. KCCP, for example, has already pledged to donate both trash bags and volunteers in the effort, Benny Lyons of the Carter County Landfill will even bring a dumpster to help haul the trash away and other volunteers will bring special tools to get the graffiti off the rocks.

“This is a very beautiful area. Children can come here with their families,” Margle said. “People do not want to take their kids where they can get stabbed by a needle.”

Margle, an amateur photographer, said she often makes trips into nature others cannot reach to capture nature’s beauty, and preserving it is vitally important.

“A few people are destroying what belongs to all of us,” she said. “This is not just my Blue Hole or your Blue Hole.”

The clean-up will begin at 9 a.m. Saturday. Volunteers do not have to register beforehand and can participate for as long or short a time as they are willing or able.