Cossatot River Cleanup June 8

[DeBo]

Saturday, June 08

10:00 am – 2:00 pm Cossatot Spring River Clean-Up (4 hours) Join Cossatot’s staff and the Arkansas Canoe Club on the beautiful, scenic Cossatot River for a day of helping clean up trash along the river, access points, and roads. We will start the day at 10:00 am and finish up around 2:00 pm. Bring any snacks you want and 3 quarts of water; and we will provide lunch. Meeting Place: Visitor Center.

[maggiepowell]

I shall be there.

Maggie

[Cowper]

DeBo and I are both planning to go, and then after lunch we'll be headed back for a little quality Rockport time.

Hope some others can make it too!

[Walter Felton]

Gayle and I will be there! Always a fun time and a chance to get to know the part staff.

Walter Felton

[SteveGabbard]

Good times at the tot today. The park staff members are awesome and really love that river. If you didn't go you should try to make it next year!

[DeBo]

Thanks Steve! As you said, the staff really love this river and it is easy to see why. It is a beautiful place. The three of us who paddled down from the deer camp had a great time on the river paddling on the river and picking up trash. I really want to thank Walter and Gayle Felton, Steve Gabbard, Chicago Bob and Cowper for their efforts. We were few but we had a great time, got free food and lots of river karma.

It is really important to support the people who take care of the places we love. This park staff does a great job protecting the river. We have worked with them for several years on a water quality monitoring study and helping keep the river clean. Public participation in partnerships like ours helps them get funding for more projects that serve the river and insure that it will be there for us in the future. Thanks to those who came to help.

[Cowper]

So, like me, Debbie Doss, and Chicago Bob show up, expecting a campground or road section assignment for cleaning. And they say, we want somebody to run down the river and get a tire that was spotted the day before. Oh no Mr ranger sir, please, not the briar patch!

So yes, we actually got to run part of the Tot yesterday. Level was 2.68 on the gage, and we only ran from Deercamp down to the Old Hwy 4 bridge, but it was still fun. The only mandatory portage was at Devil's Hollow Falls, other rapids were still fun and runnable. We learned it is quite common for the Park Staff to lead beginning kayakers down this stretch of river (although they do portage at Devil's Hollow rapid in most cases, in addition to Devil's Hollow Falls).

Overall, this stretch of river is in better-than-average shape litter wise, thanks to some help from ARG on the last two or three runs. We did still manage to find a tire and about three air-mattresses or Wal-Mart river tubes. We also got a good collection of beer cans and both plastic and glass bottles, a propane bottle, and a couple of light bulbs.

Another thing that made me smile was the quality of the experience some families were having at the visitor center - they got a very personal reptile showing from the Park Naturalist, and each kid got to get close, ask questions, and if desired touch and hold very well behaved speckled king and hognosed snakes. I just don't think a class field trip with 20 or more kids all there at the same time would have been nearly as nice. I was thinking, "my tax dollars at work, and I LIKE it!" (and, "cool job!")