The Great Suwannee River Cleanup
Due to the initial enthusiastic response to the information about the Great Suwannee River Cleanup,
I have submitted our club as volunteers for the project. We are
responsibile for a stretch of about 4 1/2 miles from the Fox Trail boat
ramp to the Sheriffs Boys Ranch. (See Map) We plan to do the cleanup on Saturday, October 16th. We
will meet in the parking lot of the CVS Pharmacy on US-90 at 8:00 am
and caravan out to the launch site. We will finish up at the
Sheriffs Boys Ranch for a dinner and campout.
The
plan is to have a river crew launch our boats at the Fox Trail boat ramp. A land crew will move the vehicles to the Boys
Ranch and help with the unloading and
weighing when the river crew arrive. They can also do a shoreline cleanup at the Boys Ranch while waiting.
The
river crew will travel
down the river and collect any visible trash along the river, including
the banks, islands, sand bars, etc. Those in kayaks and canoes
will use gloves and various reaching/retrieving tools to pick up the
trash. We will have one larger boat to collect and haul the bags
filled by those in the smaller boats. Items too large to be
retrieved will be noted, with GPS coordinates, to permit reporting them
to the Water Management District. Using the boats we already
have, we will have between 8 and 12 seats available for the river crew.
Students will be able to earn public service credit for this work.
When the river crew
arrives at the Boys Ranch, the collected trash will be weighed and
photos will be taken for reporting to the event coordinators, Current Problems.
We will have dinner and a camp out for those wishing to spend the night.
You can read the Current Problems
newsletter, "The Strainer" for more information.
