“The manner in which the Shasta-Trinity Forest area was left is disgraceful”, Holmes said in a statement.
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Authorities say about 1,000 University of OR students packed Slaughterhouse Island with more than 60 house and patio boats over the weekend. Crews were still working Tuesday to clean up about 100 tents, and piles of sleeping bags and blow-up mattresses, clothing, shoes, alcohol and coolers.
Interestingly, they also left quite a few items labeled with their fraternity letters and school logo, which became the main source in identifying the culprits.
The post was shared almost over 42,000 times by disgusted social media users and resulted in an investigation by both the University of OR and the local chapter of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, both of whom said they’d hold the fraternity members accountable. As many as 1,000 college students have been known to hang out there on rented houseboats at the same time, according to The Oregonian.
So while the OR students likely aren’t the only culprits, they were the ones who left garbage labeled with both the university and fraternity logo.
Photographs of the trashed lakeside posted to Jennifer Vick Cox’s Facebook have gone viral.
Sgt. Rob Sandbloom, of the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department boating unit, told Willamette Week it was a “typical weekend” on the lake and some citations were issued, but no arrested were made. “If you’re at your mom’s house are you just going to throw a can down and pee on her couch and say you’ll clean it up later?”
The damage was so bad that the university had to get involved and launch an investigation.
The fraternity offered to send members to clean up the mess, but the Forest Service turned them down, telling them the campground needed to be cleaned sooner rather than later, Forest Service officials said.
The University of OR is investigating allegations that a student trip spearheaded by its fraternities trashed a nearby island. The University continues to investigate the situation in partnership with several inter/national fraternity and sorority headquarters.
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Holmes said they do no yet know who is responsible. A statement was posted to the Lambda Chi Facebook page that reads in part, “On behalf of any of our members involved, the UO (Lambda Chi) chapter would like to extend our deepest apologies for any destruction of Lake Shasta resort and the surrounding environment”. “The actions in which these individuals participated do not reflect our Fraternity’s values, nor do they reflect the values of our community here at the UO”.
