North of Douglas–Armed with a Presbyterian sense of duty, George and Jan Beran drove 1,500 miles from the prairies of Ames, Iowa, to the arid hills of Douglas with one thing in mind. They wanted a hard and unadorned look at border life and its people.

Frank Zadroga collects the growing pile of trash left in the desert by migrants. Zadroga, project manger for Undocumented Waste Program, has had other clean up crews in other parts of the Arizona border.

What they got, among other things, was a day in the Chihuahuan desert 15 miles north of Douglas, picking trash left behind by migrants crossing the border illegally into the United States.

“This trash tells a story, a story of hardship and hope,” said Jan as she picked empty water and electrolyte bottles scattered along the cactus and the smuggling trails.

But the story made her sad, too, because she understood the hardship behind the hope.

For her and her husband George, a veterinarian at Iowa State University, the best approach to ameliorating the problem would be for both the American and Mexican governments to come to some agreement about how best to handle illegal immigration.

Until then volunteers like the Berans will have to do the dirty work that many have ignored.

During their visit here, the Berans and other volunteers from various Presbyterian churches in Iowa have toured the border in Douglas and Agua Prieta, hoping to get a better understanding of illegal immigration and its attendant problems; and in the process, they have been compelled to roll up their sleeves.

Walking through narrow ravines and slopes of volcanic rock just off Highway 80 on mile marker 383, a group of about 10 volunteers on Thursday stuffed 30 trash bags with plastic bottles, clothing and backpacks.

The bags were stacked along a barbed wire fence near the highway, where it will be collected by Cochise County Waste Management, said Frank Zadroga, the project manager for the Undocumented Waste Program (UDM).

The UDM is a program that cleans desert and ranch lands that have been devastated by the trash and litter left by migrants. The program was funded with $115,000 from the Environmental Protection Agency and $30,000 in matching funds from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. The ADEQ also provided trash bags and heavy-duty gloves for the volunteers.

The ADEQ has organized several of these clean-ups in other border regions such as Arivaca, the Santa Cruz River north of Nogales, and Yuma, and have collectively gathered 110 tons of trash, Zadroga said.

The manpower for the trash collection comes from volunteers that Zadroga recruits through various religious and non-profit organizations in those areas.

Thursday’s clean up was the first in Cochise County, with the aim at sponsoring more clean-ups in southeastern Arizona, he said.

Zadroga said that phase two of the UDM program will include assessing the outcome of the clean-ups, pin-pointing layover and trash sites and creating a website that will allow landowners and ranchers to not only be informed about UDM but to also call or e-mail about other existing trash sites.

Wearing heavy gloves, Zadroga and Mark Shaffer, worked among the volunteers, collecting the remaining trash along the thin migrant trails.

Shaffer, the communications director for ADEQ, heaved a heavy trash bag over the barbed wire fence and dropped it atop the growing pile of bags. By then the sun was angling to the west, deepening the shadows all across the face of the southern mountain range.

“There is such a big need for this type of work,” Shaffer said. “But it’s wonderful that we have so many volunteers willing to help with such a growing problem.”

The ADEQ is looking for volunteers to help with the enormous task of cleaning up the trash in the desert. For more information call Mark Shaffer at (602)-771-2215 or 1- (800)-234-5677. E-mails can be sent to shaffer.mark@azdeq.gov.