Trash in the barrow pit along Old Highway 30 between Baker City and the landfill on April 16, 2025. (Jayson Jacoby/Baker City Herald)

A crew of up to 10 inmates from the Powder River Correctional Facility is scheduled to pick up trash soon along a section of Old Highway 30 near Baker City where residents say items falling from vehicles going to the landfill create both a traffic hazard and an eyesore.

Baker County commissioners voted 3-0 on Wednesday morning, June 18, to approve a one-year adopt a highway agreement between the minimum-security prison and the county road department.

A work crew from Powder River will collect trash along a 3-mile section of the highway, which is a county road rather than a state highway. The prison won’t charge the county for the work.

The first crew is scheduled for early to mid July, said Valeria Pimentel, work program coordinator at Powder River.

Kellie Taylor, who lives along that section of Old Highway 30, said on Wednesday morning that she’s pleased a crew has been assigned to the task.

In mid-May she sent a letter to county officials about the issue, in response to Ed Trindle, who also lives along the highway and who told commissioners on April 16 that he’s frustrated about the “terrible, terrible trash” falling from vehicles en route to the landfill.

“This is an accident waiting to happen out there,” Trindle told commissioners. “Somebody’s going to get hurt.”

In her letter, Taylor wrote that she watched as “an entire playhouse fell directly into the highway by a vehicle, which just kept going.”

Taylor said she moved the broken pieces to the highway shoulder.

Pimentel said she’s not sure how often a Powder River crew will be available to pick up trash along the highway.

She said the first visit might take longer, due to the volume of refuse, than subsequent trips.

Taylor said she hopes the work crews can return regularly, since the trash problem is ongoing.