Area volunteers work to clean waterways
Stream of conscientiousness
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| Erica Burrus photo/ Elizabeth Eisele of the Webster University Student Center staff pulls plastic bags out of roots along Deer Creek as part of a Missouri Stream Team project. |
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Community members care about both waterways — the Meramec River and Deer Creek.
That’s why two efforts were organized this month to clean them up.A group of volunteers including members of Americorps/Stream Team and the Webster University Student Center staff took part in a stream clean up on Aug. 16 along Deer Creek at Deer Creek Park in Maplewood. They worked to remove debris from the creek and plant vegetation along the steeply sloped banks and in the streambed.
Tom Ball, the event coordinator at Deer Creek, said crews have previously removed most of the large debris from the creek, leaving only a few tires, a refrigerator and a shopping cart for Saturday.
Ball said work already had been done to remove invasive bush honeysuckle from the banks. He said the planting of native species along the banks would help prevent erosion, while adding plants to the streambed would help filter out contaminants.
The creek serves as an outlet for the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District’s sanitary sewers and combined sewers during heavy storms. This has led to the growth of bacteria including E. coli in the water, Ball said.
Deer Creek is currently under review by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to decided whether it is suitable for whole body contact — meaning fit for swimming — or if its use should be restricted to activities involving less contact, Ball said.
The Webster University Student Center staff helped with the cleanup as a community service project and as a team-building exercise, said John Ginsburg, director of the University Center.
“We were thinking about rivers as a result of the floods up north,” Ginsburg said. Deer Creek had reached its upper banks during summer flooding, which snagged plastic shopping bags in tree branches. The staff helped remove those.
While the Deer Creek cleanup brought out nearly 100 people, organizers of a project to clean up the lower 46 miles of the Meramec River this coming weekend expect to have nearly 2,000 volunteers.
Operation Clean Stream will be working to remove debris from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Aug. 23 along the Meramec from Pacific, Mo., to the Mississippi River. This will be the 41st year for this river restoration event.
Ron Coleman, executive director of the Open Space Council for the St. Louis Region, said the event serves as a reminder for people to keep our outdoor resources clean and free of litter.
However, Coleman said the event this year will differ from previous years because of the summer flooding.
“We expect there will have to be a bigger effort directed to remove some of the flood debris that found its way into the Meramec from upstream,” Coleman said. “There is likely be lot of building materials, siding, insulation and furniture.”
Coleman said the area upriver from Valley Park is at normal levels this year, but the area downstream is holding high. While volunteers will collect a
lot of debris, he said there might be lingering issues with debris that cannot be collected due to the water level.
The effort will receive help from municipal and county governments, the state, the Missouri Conservation Department, waste haulers and the Missouri National Guard, which will bring front loaders and a dump truck.
“The biggest part of it is we have a bunch of seasoned veterans of organizations like the Sierra Club, Audubon and the Wild Turkey Federation, who know how to handle this stuff,” Coleman said. “It will be a combination of muscle and heavy equipment. It’s different than litter pickup. It does require some planning and coordination with organizations that have manpower and equipment to get some of this stuff out of the river.”
In a typical year, the Operation Clean Stream event works to remove objects that were dumped on the bank side and found their way into the river, debris dragged into the river by flooding, tires washed in from efforts to curb erosion, boats and cars. Coleman said the flooding, which is what nature intends a river to do when it gets too much volume, has added to that.
“Our message this year would be that although there’s been a tremendous amount of work in putting people’s lives back in order, nobody is going to put the river back in order if it weren’t for events like Operation Clean Stream,” he said.
Anyone wanting to volunteer for the project or find out more information should visit www.openspacecouncilstl.org or call (636) 334-3035.
