By Tami Stark
The 2018 Cedar River Clean Up is complete and “in the books”, the treasures that the Cedar gave up are in the landfill, canoes are washed and hopefully the sunburns are fading.
Even with some very fun conflicting events around locally on Saturday the 11th, the River R.A.T.S. still had 25 volunteers, both on and off the water…many familiar faces and a few new ones, joining us at 9:00 and wrapping up just before 3:00.
With the rains up north the week prior to our event, the Cedar was higher than we would have liked, but that didn’t stop this group walking what sandbars there were and picking from the banks what the water left behind. As we have done this for many years now, we have learned that you cannot predict what you’re going to find. (Many still predict we’ll find nothing) This year was not an exception. One group had spotted a tin roof (a fully intact tin roof) from an old cabin lodged up against the bank and another group of canoes completely dismantled the entire piece, nails and all, and transferred it to one of our ‘running’ boats (boats that take the trash from the canoes/kayaks and run it to the dumpster) to be recycled by Benton City Recycler, Bob Busler. These groups also found a very old, 10-foot grain bin ladder. There were dozens of garbage bags and ‘flow-through’ bags full of our usual plastics, metals, Styrofoam and glass. (There is always too much glass!) The tire collection was actually down for the first time in a few years, but the inner tube numbers grew.
There was an overall feeling that what was out there to be collected in general, was down this year, and that felt like a little bit of success for the R.A.T.S. and this group of river enthusiasts and environmentalists. What’s in our portion of the Cedar is always changing, it’s always different. It’s not necessarily new things that places to the north of us are not picking up, much of what we find are items that have been buried in our banks and under the sand for many years. The water is always moving and exposing items that the current once buried.
An event like this takes support from many. We would like to thank the businesses that make this possible by their generous donations of goods and services: Kurt’s Enterprises, Benton City Recycle, I.M.C.A., Cedar River Billboard, Fareway, the Benton County Landfill , Jodi Geiger and Martha Long. I wish I had space to thank each individual volunteer that spent hours moving cars and cooking lunch, or canoeing/kayaking or running the boats, but they know who they are ~ YOU are all awesome! I hope you had as much fun as I did.
Between now and next year, just remember: take home with you what you take out with you. It all starts with you.
For information about this clean up or our clean up in 2019, please call Tami @ 319-558-7476.
By Tami Stark
The 2018 Cedar River Clean Up is complete and “in the books”, the treasures that the Cedar gave up are in the landfill, canoes are washed and hopefully the sunburns are fading.
Even with some very fun conflicting events around locally on Saturday the 11th, the River R.A.T.S. still had 25 volunteers, both on and off the water…many familiar faces and a few new ones, joining us at 9:00 and wrapping up just before 3:00.
With the rains up north the week prior to our event, the Cedar was higher than we would have liked, but that didn’t stop this group walking what sandbars there were and picking from the banks what the water left behind. As we have done this for many years now, we have learned that you cannot predict what you’re going to find. (Many still predict we’ll find nothing) This year was not an exception. One group had spotted a tin roof (a fully intact tin roof) from an old cabin lodged up against the bank and another group of canoes completely dismantled the entire piece, nails and all, and transferred it to one of our ‘running’ boats (boats that take the trash from the canoes/kayaks and run it to the dumpster) to be recycled by Benton City Recycler, Bob Busler. These groups also found a very old, 10-foot grain bin ladder. There were dozens of garbage bags and ‘flow-through’ bags full of our usual plastics, metals, Styrofoam and glass. (There is always too much glass!) The tire collection was actually down for the first time in a few years, but the inner tube numbers grew.
There was an overall feeling that what was out there to be collected in general, was down this year, and that felt like a little bit of success for the R.A.T.S. and this group of river enthusiasts and environmentalists. What’s in our portion of the Cedar is always changing, it’s always different. It’s not necessarily new things that places to the north of us are not picking up, much of what we find are items that have been buried in our banks and under the sand for many years. The water is always moving and exposing items that the current once buried.
An event like this takes support from many. We would like to thank the businesses that make this possible by their generous donations of goods and services: Kurt’s Enterprises, Benton City Recycle, I.M.C.A., Cedar River Billboard, Fareway, the Benton County Landfill , Jodi Geiger and Martha Long. I wish I had space to thank each individual volunteer that spent hours moving cars and cooking lunch, or canoeing/kayaking or running the boats, but they know who they are ~ YOU are all awesome! I hope you had as much fun as I did.
Between now and next year, just remember: take home with you what you take out with you. It all starts with you.
For information about this clean up or our clean up in 2019, please call Tami @ 319-558-7476.
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