We helped out with the Friends of the White River cleanup on Saturday 9/13. We weren't sure exactly what we were supposed to do, but Kevin Hardie - guy in charge - said we were the safety boaters. Since we brought kayaks that seemed as good as anything...not a lot of carrying capacity.
Due to an iffy weather forecast several people decided not to go at the last minute, but we had six canoes, two kayaks and two jet-drive boats on the section from Hazel Landing to Sandy Point south of 82nd Street.
The level of paddling experience among those in the canoes varied from zero to veteran so we really didn't worry about people tipping over too much unless they reached too far out to pick something up, but the "yellow bananas" from Adventure Works Events that they were paddling have proven not to be the most stable of boats - at least when loaded with three people during an adventure race - so we kept a pretty good eye on people for the first 15 minutes or so to see how they were doing, but they were fine. Must be something about adventure racers and being in a hurry that doesn't go well with those boats.
Everyone did a really thorough job in the first third of the segment, unfortunately that took about two-thirds of the time we had allowed for the cleanup.
Interesting items we found were about one-third of a canoe, a steering wheel, a construction cone and a conveyor-belt screen. We also saw what looked like a couple of appliances but they looked like it would take an excavator to get them out so we didn't bother with them.
Further down, just below 96th Street we found a huge mess of beer cans and bottles, broken plastic chairs, coolers and milk crates. James and I used straps to fasten a couple of milk crates to our boats and make it a little easier to carry trash.
One of the guys in a jet boat also hauled a grill and a small table from the sandbar behind BGI...someone is going to be really disappointed when they show up for their next sandbar party. I saw a few tires and other junk in the jet boats too, but didn't have any part of picking them up. We headed back up to he put-in fairly soon after we got back so we didn't see everything that was picked up.
An article in Sunday's paper said they had not yet totaled the amount of trash picked up, but overall there were several counties involved and I think 1000 volunteers showed up. They were expecting around 2000 but the weather kept a lot away.
In the end it was a nice paddle. The weather at the beginning was a little gray, but it turned out really nice for the day. We got to meet and paddle with some new people that we'll hopefully see on the river again, and we made a bit of a positive difference for a resource we use fairly often and hopefully don't take for granted.
Due to an iffy weather forecast several people decided not to go at the last minute, but we had six canoes, two kayaks and two jet-drive boats on the section from Hazel Landing to Sandy Point south of 82nd Street.
The level of paddling experience among those in the canoes varied from zero to veteran so we really didn't worry about people tipping over too much unless they reached too far out to pick something up, but the "yellow bananas" from Adventure Works Events that they were paddling have proven not to be the most stable of boats - at least when loaded with three people during an adventure race - so we kept a pretty good eye on people for the first 15 minutes or so to see how they were doing, but they were fine. Must be something about adventure racers and being in a hurry that doesn't go well with those boats.
Everyone did a really thorough job in the first third of the segment, unfortunately that took about two-thirds of the time we had allowed for the cleanup.
Interesting items we found were about one-third of a canoe, a steering wheel, a construction cone and a conveyor-belt screen. We also saw what looked like a couple of appliances but they looked like it would take an excavator to get them out so we didn't bother with them.
Further down, just below 96th Street we found a huge mess of beer cans and bottles, broken plastic chairs, coolers and milk crates. James and I used straps to fasten a couple of milk crates to our boats and make it a little easier to carry trash.
One of the guys in a jet boat also hauled a grill and a small table from the sandbar behind BGI...someone is going to be really disappointed when they show up for their next sandbar party. I saw a few tires and other junk in the jet boats too, but didn't have any part of picking them up. We headed back up to he put-in fairly soon after we got back so we didn't see everything that was picked up.
An article in Sunday's paper said they had not yet totaled the amount of trash picked up, but overall there were several counties involved and I think 1000 volunteers showed up. They were expecting around 2000 but the weather kept a lot away.
In the end it was a nice paddle. The weather at the beginning was a little gray, but it turned out really nice for the day. We got to meet and paddle with some new people that we'll hopefully see on the river again, and we made a bit of a positive difference for a resource we use fairly often and hopefully don't take for granted.
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