David Dehlendorf

By David Dehlendorf
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(David Dehlendorf is the Vice Chair of the San Juan Island Trails Committee)

By David Dehlendorf

Working behind the scenes â€" persuading and encouraging along the way â€" were David Dehlendorf and Lori Stokes, co-founders of the San Juan Island Anti-Litter Initiative.
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Working behind the scenes â€" persuading and encouraging each step along the way â€" were David Dehlendorf and Lori Stokes, co-founders of the San Juan Island Anti-Litter Initiative and an older group, Trash Masters.
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For their efforts to educate islanders and reduce litter and garbage on the island â€" efforts that empowered other islanders to start their own initiatives â€" David Dehlendorf and Lori Stokes share the honor of Citizen of the Year for 2007.
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For Dehlendorf, a retired banker; Stokes, retired human resouces director for Dominican University in San Rafael, Calif.; and other Trash Masters volunteers, picking up litter on Roche Harbor Road once a month provided a window into the seriousness of the island's litter problem.
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Once, after sweeping Roche Harbor Road clean, Dehlendorf saw a truck heading to the waste transfer station with its load uncovered, trash spilling out onto the street.Another time, a San Juan Sanitation truck leaked packing peanuts on Rouleau Road from Limestone Point Road to Roche Harbor Road to town.Volunteers also found trash and construction debris illegally dumped in forests and off-road sites.

"After a year of cleaning up Roche Harbor Road, I thought the amount of litter would go down," Dehlendorf said in an earlier interview."We need to eliminate the problem at the source."

Dehlendorf and Stokes decided to take Trash Masters islandwide.
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When that San Juan Sanitation truck spilled packing peanuts onto the road, Dehlendorf contacted the company, which sent out a crew to pick the peanuts up.
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In guest columns and other educational materials, Dehlendorf and Stokes continually brought the reality of that threat home, pointing out how, on San Juan Island, a tossed cigarette caused a wildland fire and a bale of hay rolled off a truck and crunched a car.

The environmental impacts of a carelessly tossed wrapper or cigarette butt were also brought home in their columns.

"No one likes to look at litter," Dehlendorf and Stokes wrote in one guest column.
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Hale also praised Dehlendorf and Stokes for helping to persuade local grocery stores to make reusable grocery bags â€" one of the items of litter most commonly found on roadsides â€" available to customers.
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But we should probably get Dave onto the Ferry Advisory Committee," Hale said.