This Saturday was my first time participating in the local Great American River Clean Up here in Sacramento.  I went out with a local canoe club and we scoured a couple mile seciton of the river that I paddle frequently.  It’s amazing how much trash gets thrown in the river, mostly by the partying rafters getting drunk while drifting through.  Those people just don’t appreciate what an amazing thing it is to have this beautiful river that has come down from the heights of the Sierras and flows right through town.  We pulled out boom boxes (radios), shoes, tires, cans, and tons of other junk.  The pile we had at the end of the day was quite impressive.  My paddling partner and I also took the time to attack some non-local invasize species as we went, bagging the seed pods and pulling the plants up to prevent further spreading.

At the end of the day, looking at the large pile of waste we had collected, it was a great feeling.  All through the paddle we had seen people along the shore doing their part, and at the end we talked to some divers who had come out to get the stuff too deep for us to reach (in fact I ferried a couple of them across the river who had ended up on the wrong side and were tired from half a day of hard work).  Though it still disgusts me to think of all that waste that was chucked into the river, it was great to see so many people that cared out there making a difference to clean things up and conserve a wonderful resource that we have.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot.  One of my favorite things was rescueing the fish that had gone into the beer cans and grew too big to get out.  I’d estimate about half the cans I pulled out (dozens and dozens of them) had a fish inside.  A little ways in I figured out the easiest way to get them out was to pull my river knife and cut the bottom of the can off and dump the water and fish back into the river.  Someone later told me they were sculpin.

Does anyone else participate in clean up efforts in your local area?

Here’s a couple of links:

I’m actually in the second photo on this one (way in the back in the bow of the red canoe if your eyes are good): http://www.sacramentopress.com/headline/37778/Sacramento_cleans_riverfront

Photos of the canoe club I paddled with from last year were used in promoting this year’s event on American River Parkway Foundations website (unfortunately I didn’t make it last year or I would have been famous): http://www.arpf.org/garcu.shtml