RESIDENTS are up in arms following what they described as an "idiotic" act of dumping at a Riverina travelling stock reserve.
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Multiple people witnessed the incident where a white utility towing a trailer full of rubbish bags emptied the load at Jones Reserve, Currawarna, before fleeing the scene.
One resident of the town, who wished to remain anonymous, saw the incident unfold and said it was a reckless act of destruction.
"You see people going in an out of the reserve all the time, people like to fish in the river and things like that, but we saw this ute driving out with an empty trailer, then five minutes later return again with a full load of rubbish," the woman said.
"My husband lost it, so he jumped in his ute and went down after them, but when they saw him coming they stopped dumping all their rubbish and took off."
The woman said her husband tried to block the offenders' way, but they managed to leave the reserve.
"We actually went down and found documents in the rubbish they dumped with names and addresses and everything so it's all been passed on to police now, but we think they might have even been meaning to come back and burn it or something," she said.
"It turns out though, the owner of the ute had lent it to friends for the day who said they need it to do a few tip runs, but obviously they didn't do it in the way she thought they would."
Her husband said the incident wasn't a one-off.
"People seem to think they can do whatever they want there, there is a fair bit of that dumping going on," he said.
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The man said he had fears incidents like this would ruin the reserve for others using it responsibly.
"It's just not on because there are so many people who use that reserve for the right reasons, and then people like this come along and ruin it for for everyone," he said.
"We don't want it to end up closed to the public because of one idiot."
The woman added that destruction to the reserve was also becoming more prevalent in ways other than dumping.
"We've also noticed a lot of fallen trees and damage to the reserve of late," she said.
"There's a great big old gum tree at the boat ramp which someone has lit on fire and pushed most of it over into the river - It's absolutely heartbreaking."
The couple say Local Land Services and Coolamon Police are investigating the dumping, and The Daily Advertiser has reached out to the station for comment.