Fourche Creek Cleanup March 8, 2014

[Deuce]

Heather and Cowper, I had to miss this one because Little Deuce and I were on a trip, but Heather's thoughts in particular have me thinking about an obvious urban stream partnership opportunity; something ongoing. Is there anything in the works? If not I have a bunch of ideas.

[adaviss]

Cowper- are you a member of AmericanRivers? If not, you should be. There is a pic of two fellows in a johnboat with about 16 tires in it during the Antietam Creek Rubbish Roundup 2013. They look mighty pleased but when i saw your pic of Debbie with tarps all by herself I thought"You go girl!" Check them out at AmericanRivers.org/Cleanup. If you plan another trip in nicer weather maybe I will be there. ann d

[ween]

Ditto Heather's comments. Truly overwhelming! It will take more than a lot of cleanups to tackle this problem. I know that the AR Master Naturalists clean up Rock Creek and that Ark. Audubon has a stake in Fourche Creek. Did anybody read the DemGazzette article about Nash Abrams and the city wide cleanup?...there IS effort, but not from the folks that would make the most difference, longterm. I'm thinking a coalition with numbers and presence to explore the possibilities.

[Cowper]

We did a couple of clean up floats on Cadron Creek last week, and it was truly encouraging. When I first got serious about cleaning from Pinnacle Springs to Hwy 65 in about January of 2012, we brought out wrecked boats, tires by the canoe full, trip after trip. But like a fog clearing in the morning, at some point it got lighter and lighter, until there just wasn't very much there at all. When we did a couple of clean up runs last week, we got three bags of trash. JUST three bags. I could have gotten maybe one more if I had gone up the bank for every piece of trash I had seen. This is an amount folks could deal with by each boat picking up just two or three items per trip, without having to do any designated, special "clean up" floats.

I'd like to use Fourche for a little urban experiment. I believe the short section from Hindman to University can be cleaned, just as Cadron was. I think significant influx of new trash could be captured with just two grates added to existing bridges in Hindman, where community volunteers could collect some of the trash before it gets further downstream. And if this section was relatively clean, then the transition as you pass under University would be truly mind boggling, and could become an educational tool for what still needs to be done and why.

So I intend to tackle this section again, and hope some will join me. Then we'll just see, 6 months later was it all for naught? Or can we knock it down to the point that just like Cadron, picking up a few items here and there, or an annual float that does NOT require Herculean efforts, will be enough to keep this section looking good?

[Tim Eubanks]

You, my friend, are the best kind of optimist.