Pahrump volunteers transform illegal dumping grounds — PHOTOS
In their bright yellow shirts, members of the Clean Up Pahrump, a chapter of the non-profit Desert Pigs, are regular fixtures picking up trash along the roadsides of Pahrump, and have made a substantial impact in the beautification and safety of the town and surrounding areas.
“Last year, [we removed] 35 tons of trash,” explains chapter president Faith Muello.
She counts that 140 tons of trash have been removed since 2019 when the non-profit began recording the weight of their collections. This past breezy Saturday morning, March 7, Muello and a group of about 20 of her volunteers added considerably to that total, nearly filling two huge 30-cubic yard roll-off dumpsters donated by C&S Waste Solutions.
The group’s goal was to clean up an illegal dump site/encampment, located almost one mile south of W. Gamebird Road at S. Woodchips Road on BLM land. “It’s a crazy story. I was at Home Depot,” Muello explains how she learned of the dump site about a month ago, “and I had my Clean Up Pahrump shirt on. And this guy, I never met him before, he goes, ‘Clean Up Pahrump, hmm. I have a mess for you.’”
Home Depot routinely donates gloves, trash bags and Tyvek suits to the group.
The stranger, Muello identified him as Jon, showed her a photo and told her the location of the site. Not visible from the road, “He brought me to the mess, and then I contacted NCSO, and they contacted BLM, and then they did their investigation,” continued Muello. Once the site was considered safe, Muello put the call out to her volunteers.
With practiced and meticulous precision, the team of volunteers descended on the dump site, removing and separating mounds of trash — from couches, dressers and tables (using a Bobcat), to nails, small sharp pieces of metal, used hypodermic needles and even an ultrasound photo. Except for the dilapidated, skeletal remains of an RV (to be removed later by the BLM), the area was restored to its pristine, original state within a few hours.
Over the years, the group has come across some strange items, as volunteer Craig Allen explains, “A really good one was when we found in the pile of [trash], the letter from the county telling them to clean up their property. So it was a letter from Code Compliance, and it was in the mess that had been illegally dumped.”
Muello recalls, “A few years ago, we found an expired turkey — you know, like for Thanksgiving dinner — still in the bag and everything, in a bush on the side of Homestead.”
Another volunteer mentioned one time he found 14 deer tags from Texas. Volunteer Dave Cressey, recognized for volunteering the most hours in 2025, mentioned, “My dad was an outdoorsman. He always said, ‘take out what you bring, and some,’ you know, make it look better than how you found it.” He added, “Faith has just created something really wonderful here.”
For more information about Clean Up Pahrump or to inquire about donating or volunteering to clean up, visit cleanuppahrump.org or their Facebook page CLEAN up PAHRUMP®.
John Clausen is a freelance reporter living in Pahrump.
