Leave No Waste

Ginger Cyan is the Environmental Stewardship Coordinator, an AmeriCorps Vista Position, at the Southeast Utah Health Department. She just received her Masters of Public Health with a concentration in Biosecurity and Disaster Preparedness from Saint Louis University. She has worked as a National Park Service ranger at Canyonlands and two other National Parks across the country. She occasionally works as a Disaster Communicator (Public Information Officer) for wildfires and other large-scale disasters. When she is not deployed or working at the health department, she is one of the top contributors for the area on iNaturalist and loves long hikes with her Underdog. Moab has been her home for the last several years, and she is one of Science Moab’s biggest fans.

Backcountry Bathroom Project Poster

SE Utah Health Department

Human Waste in the Backcountry Presentation

It’s not something we like to think about, but when you gotta know, you gotta know…how to safely go to the bathroom while out recreating. This week, we speak with Ginger Allen, Environmental Stewardship Coordinator for the Southeast Utah Health Department. Ginger is spearheading a public health campaign about human waste in the outdoors that aims to educate visitors and locals about the importance of bathroom plans in the backcountry.

Science Moab: Why is this campaign important?

Allen: Part of recreating responsibly is ensuring you’re not going to harm anybody else. And poop is harmful. It’s not something we want to think about. But we do have such privilege to be recreating outside in this beautiful area where we don’t have restrooms. So making sure that we’re good stewards of the land by picking up after yourself, if it’s an area able to handle buried waste, or an area like here, where more and more it’s going to be required to carry out your waste. We’re really trying to make this a single-issue public health campaign.

The campaign includes sovereign lands, SITLA, the National Park Service, the Forest Service, and the BLM. We’re the first, or one of the first, dedicated poop campaigns.

Science Moab: Aside from the unsightliness of human waste in the backcountry, what are the associated health issues?

Allen: Poop is deadly. The health department is doing this campaign because it’s a health hazard. You can kill someone if your poop gets into water streams or if someone happens to touch it.

There was a study done in the Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument examining how human waste degrades in the desert. The study found that it takes over a year in some cases for waste to fully degrade here, and you can still find bacteria in harmful levels after a year. They also were able to see how far bacteria travelled. It doesn’t just stay confined in the cathole; it will go up root systems, like a little superhighway, or it will go into wormholes or other animal burrows and get further outside. 

But also, our visitation is off the charts. We’re hitting that poopy capacity of no longer being able to just bury our waste. The study made the point that in some cases, maybe 2% of harmful bacteria is left after a year, but when you have thousands of visitors, that’s way more than enough to contaminate a water supply and make people seriously ill.

Science Moab: What does the campaign include?

Allen: First, we focus on educating people beforehand. I’m often that public face. I go out to trailheads, or to dispersed camping areas, and let people know, “Hey, it’s different here. Here’s the science behind why it’s different. Here’s what you can use and where you can buy these wag bags or whatever you need.” 

We also have the response aspect, which is in-person field work. And then the remediation aspect: if there’s an area that’s really past that poopy capacity, we can shut it down or work with land managers to figure out the best path.

We are actively talking to the land managers about Willow Springs and other dispersed camping areas. I think a lot of the problem is dispersed camping. But it’s also how a lot of people in town live. So there’s a lot of complexity involved.

Science Moab: What science did you do leading up to the campaign?

Allen: If we’re looking at this issue more broadly, regarding water, sanitation and hygiene, more people around the world have access to mobile phones than do toilets. These poop-related deaths and illnesses are one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the world. It’s a really serious issue.

Science Moab: What’s the long-term goal of this campaign?

Allen: We’re trying to normalize these conversations about poop. That’s one of my simple goals: normalise having crappy conversations. 

Everyone poops. We all have horror stories of being that person who was caught unprepared in the backcountry. But just be prepared: know how to go before you go. It’s super important.