Sheriff aghast at Snohomish County firework litter
A car crunches through fireworks debris littering the Snohomish County neighborhood's streets. By Matt Markovich
If you had looked down a two-block stretch of 120th Street SW near Everett on Saturday morning, you'd have seen a sea of red confetti, empty cylinders, and some unexploded firecrackers.
The road, across the street for Mariner High School, is scarred with blast marks and strewn with enough trash to fill a dump truck. With a broom in one hand and a trash bag in another, Sheri Smith, who lives blocks away, is cleaning up the leftover fireworks. She never lit one firework, never left her house on the evening of the Fourth, yet she’s sweeping away the mess that hundreds of other people have left.
For the last several years, this stretch of road near Meridian Avenue has become an unofficial firing zone for neighbors and their fireworks. And every year, there is a colossal mess to clean up afterwards. “It's getting worse each year," says Smith, who sent out flyers to her neighbors asking her to clean up a mess that she did not have any part in making. "I thought there would be a lot of people out here, and they didn't come,” says Smith. She’s recruited her grandson and his friend. She’s also asking any one driving by if they would stop and help her just for a few minutes. Most people refused. Everett Snyder agreed to stop. He pulled out his gas-powered blower, which made the clean up a lot easier. "We have drains down here and all this stuff runs in and kills our fish," says Snyder. But Smith was able to rally some influential help, when Snohomish County Sheriff John Lovick showed up. He could not believe what he saw.
Many of the spent fireworks he finds are illegal. Lovick says banning all fireworks in unincorporated Snohomish County is unlikely. Instead, he wants to people to take more personal responsibility for cleaning up after themselves. The first-year sheriff says he was aware that fireworks were being lit off in this area, but not to the degree and volume that the trash represents. “I didn't know it was this bad. But next year I will have every available deputy that I can put out here and patrol this area," says Lovick. "We will not let them destroy this community like they've done this year. You can write that down, I guarantee it." Smith says she’s got a verbal agreement with Snohomish County Public Works to pick up the trash, but only if it’s bagged.
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