New sign to me
Asked Ranger if I washed dishes in my sink then drained the gray water into bucket and used his drain if that was OK. His answer was "Anything" drained out of an RV is considered "black water...
Forum Discussion
We once volunteered at Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park. Our site was next to the restrooms and we could see the outside 'Dishwashing Sink' from our motorhome.
Two things occurred during our stay:
- A man stripped down naked after dark (there was a light over the sink area). He proceeded to get into the dishwashing sink to take his bath.
- A man carried his porta-potty to the dishwashing sink and emptied it.
Both were kicked out of the park.
Think of this the next time you use that dishwashing sink. :(
Also, if you drain a bucket of supposedly dish water from your gray tank, that gray tank also has remainders of your hand washings, teeth brushing, and showers. Is that what you would like the tenters that wash their dishes at the dishwashing sink to use? They assume that the sink is sanitary.
At another volunteering gig in a national park one of our duties was to dig away the area under the community water spigots to two feet deep and replace with new rock so that water could drain properly and wouldn't sit under the spigots. It seems that even though there are signs at the spigots directly campers not to use them for teeth brushing, dish washing or hair washing, there are those who think the rules are not meant for them. You would not believe the crap, garbage and hair we had to clean out!!
As far as the above statement that the Yellowstone rangers are tough. You cannot imagine the things that go on in the national parks and what they have to deal with daily. Our above experiences were very minimal in comparison.
Two things occurred during our stay:
- A man stripped down naked after dark (there was a light over the sink area). He proceeded to get into the dishwashing sink to take his bath.
- A man carried his porta-potty to the dishwashing sink and emptied it.
Both were kicked out of the park.
Think of this the next time you use that dishwashing sink. :(
Also, if you drain a bucket of supposedly dish water from your gray tank, that gray tank also has remainders of your hand washings, teeth brushing, and showers. Is that what you would like the tenters that wash their dishes at the dishwashing sink to use? They assume that the sink is sanitary.
At another volunteering gig in a national park one of our duties was to dig away the area under the community water spigots to two feet deep and replace with new rock so that water could drain properly and wouldn't sit under the spigots. It seems that even though there are signs at the spigots directly campers not to use them for teeth brushing, dish washing or hair washing, there are those who think the rules are not meant for them. You would not believe the crap, garbage and hair we had to clean out!!
As far as the above statement that the Yellowstone rangers are tough. You cannot imagine the things that go on in the national parks and what they have to deal with daily. Our above experiences were very minimal in comparison.
