Cleaning up the river in old Glasgow!

Glasgow Missouri River Clean-up

Saturday, August 17, 2013

Stump Island Park, Glasgow, MO - Rivermile 226

text by Steve Schnarr, photos by Doug Elley, Kimberlie McClain, Melanie Cheney & Laurie Ferretti

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An Old River Town

Glasgow is one of the finest river towns the Missouri has to offer. It’s perched on a bluff overlooking one of the sharpest bends on the river. It marks the spot where the Big Muddy funnels from a wide, meandering valley into a narrower gorge lined with Mississippi limestone bluffs, the very edge of the Ozark uplift.

Because it was built so smartly to begin with, it has a long history despite the ravages of the river below. The library in town, a beautiful old building with wooden and glass cases of old books in its well kept second story, claims to be the oldest continuously operating library west of the Mississippi.

Glasgow is on a crossroads between Marshall and Fayette, and the cross street is the river. More than anyplace I’ve been in the state of Missouri, Glasgow uses the river as a part of life. The boat traffic in the morning is fishing boats and boats checking their trotlines. The boat ramp parking lot…not a small area…is full. In the afternoon people tug kids on innertubes up and down the river, and other put in canoes or take them out.

photo by Doug Elley

Up the hill are several fantastic restaurants, a winery and the classic Fish Beak saloon where you might catch live music, a table shuffleboard game or a dollar beer. And the town is crawling with really nice people.

In the evening, the boat ramp parking lot is still full. It’s the last weekend of summer before school, and there’s also a river clean-up going on.

Getting to Town

We arrived on Thursday afternoon. Soda Popp claimed the camp with his RV. A few lucky souls came up in a van and box truck dragging a few boats. We were blessed with a Brownsville, Texas-style taco feast courtesy of Soda and his one-burner cast iron pan set up. Mark and Twila Chambers set up their RV up the hill.

Setting up Camp

On Friday morning, the crew began trickling in. As so many friends arrived, our “Flying Nun” kitchen tent got set up and the box truck spilled its contents into our clean-up camp. By lunchtime we were almost ready to hit the river and scout our trash sites…except we several of us needed to check our emails and put out a few fires before the weekend hit.

Four of us hopped in a van and headed up to the winery (honestly, not very far away). Bushwhacker Bend Winery is on First St. The back of the building opens up onto a deck that overlooks the river. They let us get some internet there (and sample some of their Norton Reserve). Overlooking the stretch of river we are spending our weekend on, we quickly caught up with loose ends back home.

For me, Glasgow is a cell phone black hole. I’ve got AT&T. I might get your text tomorrow. But not your phone call and I can’t listen to your voice mail. Chasing signal up the hill never worked... It seems that Verizon and Sprint work there, as well as some affiliated companies. Except for Glasgow, I’ve never had to coordinate a clean-up with no cell reception. And only in Glasgow, where everything you need is right there, could it work so effortlessly.

Scouting the River

Our scout did not reveal much trash. We generally limit ourselves to spots where volunteers can safely access the banks. Our dispatches, who will be handing out maps to boat drivers the next day, check out each spot along the river to take its “trash pulse”. We spend an afternoon wandering through the riverside forest looking for accumulations of floodborne trash, with our pilots hopping into and away from the banks, finding places deep enough for our boats to get to shore.

We mark locations of dumps and party spots,  note what tools we’ll need,  how many people each site will need and mark it on maps. And cross our fingers. The goal is that there is enough work there for volunteers to keep engaged for at least an hour and a half. And if not, that there is a way to move them somewhere else where they can get at it.

This clean-up we noticed small patches of trash located in many spots, but very few places where volunteers could spend two hours bringing junk to shore. So the strategy changes. It’s bumping people to a variety of sites as the river allows.

As our last scout crew approached the Glasgow bridges, we saw a massive combine tractor tire floating in the river still on the rim. We tied off to it and dragged it to the ramp, where we pulled it up to the top of the ramp with a chain. There was a lot of discussion of how many 100’s of dollars we could get if we sold it, but decided to leave it at the head of the ramp to haul away on Sunday when we left. Unfortunately, it walked off on it’s own. Someone helped themselves to the tire and it was gone by Saturday evening. Oh well, at least we didn’t have to deal with it again…

Look what our scout crew found floating in the river!
photo by Melanie Cheney

Local river lover Tom Bentley, who lives just up the hill from Stump Island, allowed us to raid his firewood stash, so we got a big pile ready for a weekend of campfires.

As the sun set, more friends arrived. The clean-up Crew was taking shape. From across the state people came to Stump Island to set up tents, grab dinner and find out what they would be doing the next day.

We call it the “pow-wow”, but it’s not a real Pow-Wow. We gather around the fire and discuss the unique aspects of this clean-up and figure out where everyone fits in. Those that don’t get assigned a task have the important task of helping other boatloads of volunteers accomplish their work most efficiently.

Before Sunrise

Our breakfast chefs hit it early. The first thing is to get the coffee going. Luckily this time we can hook into an electrical cord at Soda Popp’s RV site. Eggs, veggies, bacon, sausage. Salsa, tortillas and salad greens. Everyone rolls up their breakfast in a tortilla and tackles their job.

Registration is set up under the nice picnic pavilion at Stump Island Park. Stream Team t-shirts, gloves, water, life jackets, tools, trash bags, banners, signs, pop-up tents, boats, radios…everything is put where it will be needed. And then more people come to help…

Getting on the River

Together with our partners at the Mo. Dept. of Conservation (Biologists and Agents).  a boat brought by a local 4-H family (the Prentzlers) and our own four working boats (one has a terminally ill motor), we were able to get almost everyone on the river  without making our boats come back and get more. This means the boats can shuttle volunteers to more than one spot, giving everyone a more effective experience. This is the efficiency that can make a clean-up with 100 people gather as much trash as a clean-up with 200. And it worked.

One of the crews hauled by MDC's huge fish sampling boats.
Photo by Doug Elley.

 

The Clean-up

photo by Steve Schnarr

We had one group (they called themselves the Bad-A** Boys, although they were not all boys…) attack the bank directly across the river from the ramp. I’ve heard that this was an old barge repair port, and the banks were littered with massive chunks of steel, cable, litter and tires. Oh, and three abandoned barges silted into the bank that we didn’t touch. The gas-powered chop saw ran in bursts all morning, liberating old cable from the riprap. And piles of trash bags gathered along the bank.

Jen Sieradski's crew digs out a barrel.
photo by Laurie Ferretti.

Some of these guys were the founders of Log Boat Brewery, a craft brewery slated to open this fall in Columbia. We love the name...it's inspired by the original meaning of "Missouri" which translates to "River of Big Canoes". Check out their website, which tracks their progress building their business through a virtual map of the Missouri River. 

A couple of other boats had trash nets, and they floated through rafts of debris collecting bags full of crazy detritus from all communities upstream. And lots of balls. The Prentzler family took their boat to the Glasgow riverfront, where they filled their boat several times with old, abandoned junk. This was our first time cleaning in Glasgow with lower water levels, and it was great to get that stuff off the banks.

Very cool trash find...photo by Diane Oerly

There were 30 volunteers from the Steinmetz 4-H Club - families who know about cleaning up other people's trash. They have adopted a stretch of highway 5 near Glasgow. What a bunch of great people! 

Several spots were apparently the level of high water during recent flooding. In the middle of a clean forest of cottonwoods would be a lower depression full of plastic, a tire, and some large chunks of Styrofoam. It was all bagged and removed.

Most groups finished before their shuttle boat came to get them. Then they were stuck on the banks of the longest river in North America, forced to stare at this amazing flow of water rolling by and all the birds and wildlife that gather at its shores. Bummer.

Lunch

The kind folks at the Farmer’s Pick Buffett at Boonville’s Isle of Capri Casino put together a huge lunch of sandwiches and fixins for us. All we had to do was pick it up. It was a treat to see all the blue Missouri Stream Team shirts lined up along the bank watching the river go by as folks ate lunch. We had a great trash contest, then hit the river again to bring all that stuff to the ramp.

Lunch was provided by Isle of Capri Casino. Beautiful view supplied by the Missouri River. photo by Kimberlie McClain

With all of our local friends, we got it done in short order. Our two small boats took groups of kids on the river for a boat ride, and we filled our hauling trailer and a boat full of scrap metal to be recycled on Monday.

Loading 1.75 tons of scrap metal.

An evening by the river

photo by Doug Elley

Stump Island Park has a bunch of big, beautiful cottonwoods and sycamore, and our camp was laid out below them. Tim Nigh and Liz Doubet led a cook crew that fed a huge group of people a fantastic dinner of grilled veggies and pork loins. As the sun set, we passed the feather and shared our stories of a great day cleaning up the river.

This cleanup was an opportunity for a lot of our local friends from the region to come for the weekend, set up camp and make this clean-up run smoothly. We had some friends that we hadn't seen in years and other newer members of the tribe. It all culminated with dinner around the campfire. We had over 40 people join us!

Our deepest appreciation goes to all the people of Glasgow. They love their river and it shows. It’s one of the cleanest stretches we’ve seen and it was a delight to spend the weekend there.

After clean-up relaxation. photo by Doug Elley.

Glasgow, MO, Clean-up - April 13-15, 2007

by Steve Schnarr
photos by Dory Colbert and Melanie Cheney

note: the Glasgow clean-up was supported financially by Pat Jones, the Mid-Missouri Solid Waste Management District and the Army Corps of Engineers. Check out our website www.riverrelief.org for our large list of generous sponsors.

“Pay no attention to the man behind the Doppler”

Friday – April 13 – Set up Camp, Scout the River
Forecasts were for 2 inches of snow and subfreezing temperatures. Talk of flash flooding pierced the airwaves. Our crew (read: "family") of core volunteers gathered around a glowing fire at the end of Friday after scouting for trash on the river, setting up camp and gathering firewood. As the cloudy day slowly darkened, the first drops of rain were falling and we were all dreading a night of dealing with the elements.

So we headed into downtown Glasgow and sat in the “Red Room” at the old “Miss Kitty’s” (I’ve forgotten the new name – “Beckett’s”?) for a feast after an afternoon scouting trash on the chilly Big Muddy.

The excellent cook and waitresses dealt with our weird quirks with smiles, and we warmed our bellies before a cold night on the banks of the river.

After returning to Stump Island Park, we threw up a pop-up tent alongside the fire, giving us a chance to stay dry but keep warm together and catch up.

Saturday – April 14 – The Clean-up
There was no snow on the ground when we woke up. The rain was letting up and the fire kept the chill off. Cars and trucks started rolling in as volunteers from Glasgow, Boonville, Fayette and Columbia showed up despite the gnarly forecast. By the time the day was over, 46 volunteers came out to pitch in with our Missouri River clean-up.

Our friend, Sonny Shive, who we met at our 2004 clean-up, had already lined up our dumpsters and scrap metal haul (Violia Industries donated a dumpster, and Steve Gooch offered to take the scrap). Alternative Fuel Sources Inc. drove up a tractor-trailer to haul tires, since they would be back the following week to get tires in Fayette, just 13 miles away. ASF shreds tires for use in the Sibley Power Plant upstream near Fort Osage. The stuff is mixed and burned with coal, for a hotter, cleaner burn.

We held a pow-wow and decided we’d make the most impact if we stuck to the land for the morning, hitting a dumpsite near the little town of Lisbon. The spot is perched on the side of a creek that drains right through the Big Muddy Wildlife Refuge and into the Missouri. Two collapsed house trailers were host to a pile of trash that penetrated several feet underground. Scrap and trash were strewn around an abandoned school bus and was cascading into the creek below.

Like an “army of ants”, our volunteers spread about the site, instantly producing bags full of trash (old clothes, plastic, barbed wire, old, degraded tarps) and mounds of tires and scrap metal. After several trips hauling scrap, tires and trash in our 4x4 pickup, a small trailer and a couple of boats (we just pulled behind like trailers and filled them up).

The site had been a long time thorn in the side of the Big Muddy Wildlife Refuge, who had been working with Friends of Big Muddy to figure out a way to get the stuff out of there. We knew we could only make a dent in what was there, but we did get everything that was in imminent danger of tumbling into the beautiful creek below.

Little did we know, but a couple weeks before the Refuge had struck a deal with a local scrap hauler to dismantle the trailers and clean up the site. Only as we were hauling away the last of the loads did he figure out what we were doing and stopped us on the road. “Where are you going with my heavy metal?” he asked, seeing the payoff for his clean-up driving down the road.

He was understandably upset, but soon calmed down once he realized we had actually done him a favor by hauling away so much trash and tires. Unfortunately, he and a buddy had to send a truck and trailer up to Stump Island Park to haul back all the scrap we had taken already.

As we were cleaning up the dump, a group of Girl Scouts from Troop 955 arrived to clean-up the park. They each grabbed a trash bag and joined Jeff Barrow to clean-up. Like an easter egg hunt, the tough bunch of scouts scoured the park and hillsides, filling trash bags and even rolling a tire down the hill to the road.

Neighbor Tom Bentley grabbed a few bags and spent the day humping bags of trash up the riverbanks from the waterline and driftpiles below. Throughout the day, locals like Edna Blackwell and Larry Gilmore showed up to pitch in. Teri and Greg Liemkuehler showed up with a couple loads of firewood for our camp.

Saturday Afternoon - Back on the River
After a wonderful lunch prepared by Dyan Pursell and Vicki Richmond, we threw our boats in the water. After a day of hard, sweaty work, it was the perfect temperature for cleaning up on the river. Dave Stous, Eric Hempel and I headed directly across the river and immediately started filling up bags with plastic drift. Then…the shout, “Tire Dump! Bring the boat around!” By the time I swung the boat around below an abandoned barge, tires and piles of asphalt shingles began cascading down the sloped barge.

By the time we loaded the boat, we saw the other boats coming upstream, weighed down with barrels, a fridge, a steel water tank and bags of trash.

I also took a nice young couple of reporters from the Boonville Daily News out for their first trip on the river. We definitely had to check out the bald eagle nest just downsream, where one eagle perched on the nest while the other wheeled around above the river, checking out our boats.

Saturday evening - a gathering of friends
Our buddies Heidi and Jim showed up just in time to fix dinner. Salad, pork steaks and “Extreme Mac & Cheese” were on tap, with Sue’s delightful baked desserts to finish it off. As we settled around the fire, the sun peeked out briefly, warming us instantly. We settled in with glasses of hot spiced wine and flew some of the most dramatic foshees ever (interspersed with lots of pseudo-pirate talk). The only musical instruments anyone brought were a harmonica, a couple drums and some pots and pans from the kitchen but we made music anyway!

Sunday morning - oops
The theme for this clean-up could easily be: “There’s the plan, and then there’s what you actually end up doing.”

Our plan on Sunday morning was to zip a couple of boats downstream to Jameson Island to pick up mounds of trash left from a clean-up the previous week done by the Friends of Big Muddy.

What actually happened… as we awoke from our groggy post-clean-up sleep, the rumor began to spread around camp. “One of our boats is gone!” Instantly folks jumped to action. John Brady and Anthony Pettit hooked up the “Char” (our 60 horse Grizzly) and headed to Taylor’s landing to scout upstream. Racin’ Dave called up our old friend Captain Kirk to hit the sky in Captain’s Cessna to scout from air. The “Saskia” (our 90 horse plate boat) headed downstream. The boat was found about ten miles downstream, leisurely resting along a riprap bank. Following this fiasco, everybody hit the river again to go get the trash, with "Char" heading on down to trailer up in Rocheport.

A imperfect, but beautiful day on the river. The sun was out in full force, and the stress of the lost boat eventually dissolved and washed downstream, leaving us exhausted and ready for bed.

by steve schnarr

Glasgow Clean-up Results

Glasgow, MO, Missouri River Clean-up
April 14, 2007
Stump Island Park

Total Volunteers: 46
River Relief Core Crew: 32
River Miles: 9.5 (210.5-211.5 (right bank), 222-229 (both banks), 1.5 miles of Little Chariton River)
Tons of Landfill Trash: 2.1 tons
Tons of Scrap Metal: 2.5 tons
Tires: 90 (45 with rims, 45 without)
Number of Boats: 3 Missouri River Relief boats
Groups Represented: Girl Scout Troop 955, Friends of Big Muddy

Partial List of Trash recovered:
(Trash was not completely tallied, these are a sample of what was recovered)
90 tires
5 55-gallon metal barrels
2 refrigerators
1 accordion
1 100 gallon steel water tank
2 Coast Guard buoys
2 car batteries
25 metal studs with copper wiring
15 sheets of roofing tin
2 truck springs
10 metal tent frame joints
4 large bags full of asphalt shingles
3 55-gallon plastic barrels
7 basketballs
1 full set of Cadillac hubcaps
1 mailbox (no mail)
Several bags of old clothing
9 refrigerant canisters
Steel Door
Liberty Bell coffee can
A set of hand tools
Window squeegee

Ode to the River

April 14th 2007
(Glasgow Clean-up)
by Dareth Goettemoeller

(Dareth wrote this poem the day of the Glasgow Clean-up
and shared it with us around the campfire that night.

They Came
Like a flood of ants they came
In the cold, in the rain
They came

Dreams of trash undiscovered
Treasures unclaimed
They came like ants
In the rain

Wash it down they said
With beer
The rain will stop come morn
And they did
And it did

And so they began in search
Of trash undiscovered

Shall we search the riverbanks?
Shall we search the roads?
Quick and quiet they came to the realization
Only the trash mattered

To the trash!
To the Trash!
And they flood like ants
To the secret undiscovered trash

Oh the joy!
Trash abounded then!
With bags and shovels
and bulging muscles
the trash was gathered
quick and clean

HEY YOU!
HI Ho!
I smell the blood of a trash stealer
And you!!!
Put down my trash!
The ogre cried
I am the lord of this heap!
Bow and obey
And they say, that day
The heart of river relief grew 2 sizes plus 3
And let me tell you why.
Yes they did put down their treasure
Laid away their trash

For you see
River relief has many friends
Old and new and all so dear
River Relief has many stories
New and old, forgotten, and "imaginatively
created"(bullshit)

And that day they looked at the ogre
As he stomped and cried
And they looked and saw not an ogre
But a boy, alone, no friends, alone in the woods
No stories, no friends, only trash

And they saw
And they knew
This man with all the trash was very poor

And they were rich with friends and with stories
With love and laughter
And more to be discovered

And with hearts grown 2 sizes and 3
They spoke gentle apologies
And left that little boy behind
In his place of forgotten friends and untold stories

And with gentle hearts
River relief laughed and sang
To the beer!
With our friends!
Our stories!
Our hearts grown 2 sizes and 3!