Insisting that "waste" in §261.11(d) does not include feces is a bit of a lost cause, isn't it?

The dictionary defines "waste" as excrement, and the dictionary defines "excrement" as "waste matter discharged from the body; especially: feces." (It was your suggestion to look at the dictionary, and the dictionary doesn't agree with you.) The district judge in Oregon and the panel of 9th circuit judges both interpreted "waste" in §261.11(d) as including feces: "In the present case, Wasson stored waste (human feces) in a bucket."

If "waste" did not include feces, why did Wasson lose the appeal? How did he violate §261.11(d) if the poop in the bucket did not meet the definition of "waste"?

To be a little more precise, the regulatory prohibition concerns the disposal of "garbage" which is defined as including among other things "sewage" or "waste." So you don't have to establish that waste is sewage for there to be an obligation to remove it. If you have waste, it's garbage, and it must be removed, just like any other kind of garbage.

If we cannot agree on this, we're not going to agree on anything else I'm afraid. Can we at least agree that if you have "waste," whatever that may be, there is an obligation to remove it under §261.11(d)?

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If that waste is sewage, then burying it would be a flat out violation of 261.11, and whoever wrote Wasson his approval letter could not have approved it.


If burying sewage violates §261.11, then logically and necessarily so does the burying any other type of garbage defined by §261.11(d) i.e. "paper, can, bottle, sewage, waste water or material, or rubbish." You agree that burying paper, can, bottle, or rubbish violates §261.11, don't you?

Your basic argument here (other than "feces isn't waste" which is a non-starter) is that even though burying sewage would be a "flat out violation of 261.11," the burying of waste would not violate §261.11(d) (never mind that 261.11 says in the very same sentence that sewage must be removed from the site or area and also that waste must be removed from the site or area) because there is a "custom and usage" of burying waste.

In other words, the forest service promulgated a regulation prohibiting the burying of paper, can, bottle, sewage, waste water or material, or rubbish, but the prohibition as it relates to waste is nugatory because of a custom and usage of burying waste. Can you articulate any coherent, logical reason why the forest service would bother promulgating this prohibition-that-is-not-a-prohibition in the first place?

You seem to be a "show me the authority" stickler, so here we have an example of the Forest Service acting under the authority expressly provided by the US Code going through all the required hoops to set national policy for national parks, via regulatory rulemaking including publication in the federal register, notice and public comment, etc., for the disposal of garbage in every national forest, and the policy it implements is that garbage -- including "waste" -- must be removed from the forest.

Yet you're saying that this national policy can simply be dismissed in favor of a "custom and usage" which unlike §261.11(d) has never been stated as national, generally applicable policy in any document that I can find, has not been implemented via the administrative procedures act, with notice, public comment, etc. The latter seems to be a-ok with you, but not national policy which was unquestionably authorized and properly implemented. Why is that?

Yes, there are plenty of documents on forest website (visitor's guides, LNT material, forest orders, etc.) that sanction cat holes in many forest areas -- I mentioned these before you did, because I think they are examples of the forest service "providing" receptacles (or "places") for the disposal of garbage. Angeles National Forest, San Bernardino Forest, Inyo National Forest (but not Whitney Zone) have posted these documents online and so have a bunch of other national forests. If you bury garbage in any of the forest areas where doing so is authorized (and do not deviate from the stated conditions and measurements, e.g., depth of hole, which are not uniformly stated by every forest that allows cat holes) you could not be successfully prosecuted for violating §261.11(d). But if you bury garbage where doing so is not authorized (a national forest doesn't have to do anything affirmatively to adopt that policy because it is already national policy by default), it would be another story. Even if Inyo is not lawfully "providing" wag bags as receptacles in the Whitney Zone, you still need to remove your garbage -- including feces.