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Love Our Lakeshore: How you can help keep Apostle Island National Lakeshore privies open
We Love Our Lakeshore for so many reasons, including the natural beauty, the multicultural history and the remoteness of the Apostle Islands in the vastness of Lake Superior. While that remoteness is a blessing for campers, boaters and other Lakeshore visitors, it is also a big challenge for the National Park Service team tasked with keeping island facilities, including 36 privies on 19 islands clean and open for public use.
In this Love our Lakeshore report, learn how you can do your part to keep the privies open and get a behind-the-scenes look at the logistics and hard work required to make your next visit to the islands possible, through the lens and words of an Apostle Islands National Lakeshore volunteer.
If you think keeping your bathroom at home clean is a challenge then join the Apostle Islands privy crew for a real adventure.
The first tool you need to start this task is a very large boat. The 47-foot-long Phoenix is the largest boat in the Apostle’s fleet, capable of carrying heavy construction equipment and a 1,000-gallon honey wagon. This boat and honey wagon are the first tools needed to keep privies open on islands. Next, you need over 500 feet of vacuum tube and a crew of five to manage it.
Honey wagon and hoses aboard the Phoenix – click to enlarge photos
NPS team carrying hoses to the Phoenix
Once the crew is assembled, they need protective gear including Tyvek disposable suits, elbow length gloves, and face shields. They lovingly call these “sauna suits” because they cook you from the inside out. Then each crew member needs to assemble a water line and a vacuum hose line from the boat to each privy.
NPS team member suiting up in white tyvek suit and gloves
Hoses on boardwalk outside privy
Connecting the hose from the boat to the one from the privy
Although this may sound like a simple task, this entails wrestling 500 feet or more of vacuum tubing from the boat across the shore and over to each island privy. Unfortunately, most Apostle Island privies are located at the top of tall lighthouse access staircases or near backcountry campsites. They are rarely near the docks or shorelines.
NPS team filling the waste can with water from the small white hose
NPS team preparing to clean privy
Pumping waste and removing trash from a privy
In addition to these complicated remote geographic logistics, the biggest challenge to keeping restrooms open on the islands is people. Kayakers, campers, and boaters using the privies keep filling them with trash and boat waste. Unwanted underwear and diapers clog the vacuum tubing being used to empty the privies. “People don’t realize how trash in privies clogs our vacuum lines and forces us to dig each piece of trash out of the human waste by hand,” said members of the privy crew. “It is disgusting and every cleaning takes hours more time due to human trash.”
NPS team doing another part of the cleaning process
Pumping waste into the honey wagon on the Phoenix
Pumping waste out of the privy
Additionally, boaters wanting to avoid marine dumping fees fill offshore privies with their boat waste, forcing the need to more frequently empty those privies. “Our honey wagon tank can only service two privies per trip and the process can take an entire day,” said Phoenix captain Myron Basina. “It takes us a whole summer just to get through one round of servicing these privies because they are spread out over 250 square miles on 19 islands. If they get filled faster than we can empty them then we will have to close them.
“We are asking all island privy users to “Love our Lakeshore” by not putting trash into the privies and by emptying boat waste at designated areas in the marinas.”
Hoenig says, “Every visitor to these beautiful islands can help us to keep our island privies open and reduce how frequently we must pump them just by doing these two things.”
Phoenix at dock with kayakers paddling to shore
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