Volunteer group tells Mason County commissioners encampments and mobile methadone van are harming water, safety and services

Bill Hyatt, a member of a volunteer coalition that said it started as the Mesa County Cleanup Crew and later became ‘No More,’ told Mason County commissioners that volunteers had removed “over 80,000 pounds” of trash from hillside encampments and brought photographs showing camps, shopping carts and damaged banks that drain into Oakland Bay.

Hyatt and other presenters said the sites have open drug use, human waste that runs into shellfish-growing waters, and thousands of discarded syringes. “We picked up over 2,500 needles,” one presenter said, and the group said those needles and open latrines pose measurable risks to parks, waterfront and the shellfish industry — which the presenters described as a leading local employer.

The group also criticized an ETS mobile methadone clinic (referred to in the meeting as the ETSRV). Presenters said the mobile clinic’s caseload grew from about 30 people when it began in late 2023 to roughly 130 regular clients and as many as 240 unique individuals, a rise they said came from ETS reporting and interviews they conducted with ETS staff. The presentation cited a stated ETS operating budget figure of about $42,000,000 and offered a per-client cost estimate of about $22 per day, with presenters saying roughly 85% of those costs are billed to Medicaid.

Presenters said increased EMS and police responses are linked to the encampments. They told commissioners that, in one period, first responders made 195 responses to Brewer Park and recorded 117 transports at an estimated $1,684 per transport, a tally presenters said added to more than $328,000 in transport costs in that reporting window.

A medical professional who spoke during the same presentation (identified in the transcript as Dr. States) urged a structured approach to treatment, arguing that medication-assisted treatments delivered without coordinated structure and accountability are unlikely to move people away from substance dependence. “Handing out drugs is a partial solution that is not compassionate,” the presenter said, advocating either for funding a local multidisciplinary treatment system or for transport arrangements that send clients to programs that provide that structure.

Presenters asked commissioners to pursue enforcement of existing laws, require greater accountability for landowners, and explore options to relocate the ETS mobile clinic or provide a county-run transport to the brick-and-mortar ETS clinic in Olympia. Commissioners and staff said they would arrange follow-up conversations with housing and behavioral-health staff and welcomed the volunteers’ offer to present the material to other local bodies, including the city council.

The presentation prompted questions from commissioners about the needle-exchange program’s operations and whether exchanges remain strictly “one-for-one.” Commissioners also flagged water-quality and public-safety concerns and asked staff to share the volunteers’ documented GPS locations and photographic evidence for follow-up. The presenters said they had recorded interviews with ETS staff — including named ETS communications and clinical staff — and had provided that material to the county.