The hot summer day brings a swarm of urban beach-goers out to Broughton Beach, a sandy shore by the Columbia River. Children dig rapidly filling lagoons in the sand while young couples playfully dunk each other in the river.

Some people haven't visited this beach for more than 30 years, and to them the riverbank is nearly unrecognizable.

The changes are because of a Metro effort to clean up the beach and redesign the adjacent parking lot, changing the beach from a notorious party destination into a family-friendly venue.

Broughton Beach used to be known as Dittlers Beach, a beach known for bonfires and parties. It was "a place to bust open some cold ones along the river," according to Metro park ranger Jim Caudell.

With heavy usage, the beach was often filled with trash. Cleaning the garbage proved to be a Sisyphean task. Caudell said he would spend half the day filling 5-yard dump trucks to clean the beach, only to have to do it again the next day.

Glass shards used to litter the sand at what was once called Dittlers Beach. Metro staff now uses a Beachtech 2800 to clear glass and debris from the beach. Photo by Arashi Young

Beach-goer Michelle Helman said that Dittlers had a human waste problem, too.

"There were no bathrooms," Helman said on a hot, sunny July afternoon. "There were big piles of garbage that were dumped ... and people were using that as the bathroom."

Efforts to get people to clean up after themselves were ignored. Caudell placed trashcans along the length of the beach - the next day, the trashcans would be stolen. Caudell tried to build wooden frames to hold the trashcans, but they were destroyed.

"I built two-by-four braces, dug them into the sand and attached 12 new garbage cans to them," Caudell said. "The next day all of the corrals had been pulled over, broken up and burned - even burning some of the plastic garbage cans."

Shards of glass were also a problem at the beach. George Fisher would drive from West Linn to Broughton Beach every morning to let his dog run up and down the shoreline. When his dog cut its paw on a shard of glass, he and his wife began picking up the glass.

"There was glass all over the place. It was solid glass. We just started picking it up, one piece at a time," Fisher said.

Two major changes turned Dittlers Beach into Broughton: the renovation of the parking lot next to the beach at the M. James Gleason Memorial Boat Ramp and the discovery of the BeachTech 2800 beach cleaning machine.

A new parking lot at the Gleason boat ramp limits access to the beach, and closes at dusk. An older, free lot nearby was closed.

Caudell discovered the BeachTech 2800 when he traveled to Venice Beach in Los Angeles. The BeachTech cleans the sand by sifting it and retaining the larger fragments of trash. By the end of the first week of using the machine, more than 115 tons of glass, rocks and nails were pulled out of the beach.

Visitors to the beach earlier this week generally seemed pleased with the changes.

Painters Timothy Young and Viga York enjoy a day of painting at Broughton Beach. Photo by Jim Caudell

Timothy Young, a painter, had all but given up on the beach when it was a party beach.

"There used to be a lot of crime there, and when it hit the papers, I just decided that this wasn't a place to be," Young said in a phone interview.

Young decided, almost on a whim, to find the beach again after 30 years of being away. When he rediscovered Broughton, he was pleasantly surprised.

"It was amazing. I was thrilled to death to see this beautiful location," he said, adding that he plans to bring more painters to Broughton.

Not everyone was universally pleased with the changes. Visitor Shelly Hines, who spent the day making a large dragon around a sand castle, missed the free parking from the old era. Parking at Broughton and Gleason costs $5.

Still, most people had positive things to say about the new Broughton Beach.

Dawn Wilcher, a great-grandmother was watching her niece's dog while her family swam in the water. She remembered Dittlers when it was a party location and said that Broughton has grown up.

"It used to be the days of party," Wilcher said. "It's a different kind of party now."