Clean the Bay Day 2015

What a great Clean the Bay Day at Indian River Park today.    With gorgeous weather over 90 volunteers from around the city came to the park to remove trash and debris that sullies our natural area and would otherwise slowly get washed into Chesapeake Bay.   We had participants from Cub Scout Packs 42, 700, and 800, the Junior Master Naturalists, the Oscar Smith High School National Honor Society, Capital One Bank, local residents, and of course, our core volunteers from the Friends of Indian River.    Dozens of cub scouts and their families fanned out scouring the main trails, other teams headed out to the far reaches of the park, while the undaunted students from Oscar Smith headed out into the muddy flood plain to retrieve being washed downstream by the storm runoff.

Actually, the park trails were in excellent shape with little trash, allowing us to focus our efforts on the flood plain.  By the end of the morning, our hardy volunteers had hauled out 38 consolidated bags of trash, a tire, a fire extinguisher and a muddy, soggy mattress.   All in all, we estimated that we removed 850 pounds of trash, which was about 20% less than last year.   The most common items were beverage containers - cans, bottles, cups - and food wrappers.    The largest item of the day was the mattress.   The most interesting item was an old Red Ryder BB Gun (with a warning about the risk of possible eye injury).

After the cleanup, many participants stayed around for the after picnic and enjoyed burgers, hot dogs, camaraderie,  and the good feeling of success.    And our next cleanup, along Indian River Road is only two weeks away!    For more photos see HERE