Adopt-A-Road Cleanup

Thank you to the eleven volunteers who came out this morning to clean up along Indian River Road and under Indian River Bridge.   All in all, the volume of trash was lower than in past cleanups, which is an encouraging trend.   Still we collected 6 big bags of trash from under the bridge and another 9 bags along the roadway from MacDonald to Wingfield.    The team was proud of their accomplishment: all litter we collected is litter that no longer despoils our streets or is washed into our waterways.

By far, the item we collected in the greatest quantity were hundreds and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of cigarette butts.   If you know a smoker, please remind them that cigarette butts are made with plastic fibers, are not biodegradable, and should never be tossed out their car window.

Inaugural Hike at Indian River Park

We had a great turnout for our inaugural hike on the new nature trail in Indian River Park.   A big thank you to all the groups who made this possible including City of Chesapeake's Department of Parks and Recreation, the Urban Forest Trail Blazers, the Chesapeake Master Gardeners, the Virginia Cooperative Extension – Hampton Roads Master Gardeners, the Chesapeake Arboretum and the Eastern Virginia Mountain Bike Association, and all the great volunteers of the Friends of Indian River.

For more information about the park and the nature trail, see our new pages about the park under the Resources Tab:
- Park Info
- Native Trees of Indian River Park

On December 7th, we'll be back in the park to work on the removal of invasive English ivy.   Come on out and lend a hand.   For our full listing of upcoming events see our calendar.

Update: Mary Reid Barrow's article on the hike is now online at http://hamptonroads.com/2013/11/coastal-journal-big-trees-are-draw-indian-river-nature-trail