Cleaning Rivers

Kansas City Missouri River Clean-up
Kaw Point Park, Kansas City, KS
Saturday, October 3, 2009

text and photo by Russ Payzant

(blogmaster's note: Russ is one of the founders of Rivermiles, the folks that bring you the Missouri River 340. Their mission is the same as ours: connect people to our rivers through direct action and experience. He drove a Rivermiles boat at our clean-up, taking volunteers out to pick up trash. Thanks Russ!)

On October 3rd, we helped the Missouri River Relief with a clean-up of the Area Rivers around Kansas City. The public was invited to a day on the river, with an effort to clean up the river bank. A few hundred people turned out and we picked up a lot of trash and even dug out some appliances that had been dumped in the water. Made a difference I think—now the river is not like clear mountain streams or the Opal blue waters of Cozumel, but it is better than it was.

The real purpose was to give people a chance to travel the Missouri and Kaw Rivers, to see the rich resource and beauty right here in their home town. As we ferry them back and forth between work areas, they see wonderful scenes of riverscape. Many people lived here their whole lives and have never seen it, they were impressed. It was a relaxed day and pleasant. I like this time of year.

(for more results of the Kansas City Clean-up, click here - to see the whole photo file of the clean-up, click here)