The Haines Borough’s Parks and Recreation Advisory Committee is looking for alternatives to provide an outhouse at Mosquito Lake campground.
Due to budget restraints, the campground is under “passive management” by the state Division of Parks, which means people can use the facility, but there’s no maintenance.
Park ranger Travis Russell said an outhouse once located at the site was removed five or more years ago and a holding tank below it was capped.
Rich Chapell, chair of the borough committee, said he has identified a potential source of funds to build an outhouse – through a sportfish access grant – but “passive management” means that even with a new outhouse on the site, the Division of Parks doesn’t have funds to maintain it.
Chapell said the committee is hoping to meet with Friends of Mosquito Lake School to see if there’s interest in an arrangement to maintain the outhouse. “Somebody would have to make sure it got cleaned every once in a while.”
The campground is a popular one with anglers going after cutthroat and Dolly Varden, and for ice fishermen as well, Chapell said. The site includes an unmaintained road, picnic tables, fire rings and a boat dock.
“People spend time there, so it would be great to have some way to relieve yourself in a sanitary way,” he said.
Ranger Russell said he’s not certain parks would allow another entity to build an outhouse on its property, but he thinks it’s a worthy discussion.
“(The campground) is actually not in bad condition, with the exception of there being no outhouse out there. It’s a great site for a weekend trip out there. The dock’s still out there, and the picnic tables and fire rings,” Russell said.
Chapell said if an outhouse can’t be sited on parks property there, he’s interested in looking for other nearby locations for a restroom or a place campers can use an existing restroom, perhaps including Mosquito Lake School, which is about a mile away.