Week 2 of the Big Muddy Clean Sweep!

Jeff City Results, Race to the Dome and More~!

Week two of the Big Muddy Clean Sweep began with river trips with long time partners and sponsors Missouri Department of Conservation Stream Team staff and Missouri Department of Natural Resource employees to provide a unique place for discussion on the future of resource conservation while experiencing a pretty amazing natural resource in itself.  What better place to meet than on the Big Muddy which flows directly beneath the state capital and many of their offices?

 Meanwhile, the Big Muddy Clean Sweep barge crew continued to make arrangements for the "River Clean-up" barge to move upriver.  Finally, after a number of mishaps and missed opportunities, Hermann Sand & Gravel gave our barge a ride up to Hermann, and then to Jeff City with help from the guys at Capital Sand Co. & the Jeff City River Terminal.  The barge had finally arrived~!  

As things changed minute to minute, and day to day, we hastily made preparations to "move in" and ready the barge.  Big Muddy thanks to the barge team Jeff Barrow, Steve Schnarr, Racin' Dave Stevens, Jodi Pfefferkorn, Daniel Belshe and Anthony Pettit for getting things in order so we could quickly transition into our big clean-up event, the Jefferson City Missouri River Clean-up!

On Friday we began to set-up camp for our crew, organize gear for the clean-up and began scouting the river for clean-up sites to ferry the volunteers to. Our good friend Soda Popp (yes that's his real name!) rolled into Noren Access as other River Relief crew arrived to fry us up some local caught fish, potatoes and bean stew while we attempted to recover and refuel from the massive effort it had taken to get to that point! 

Thankfully the river had been kind to us all week, and blessed us with beautiful Fall weather in all its glory~!  In addition, the Noren Access (aka Wilson's Serenity Point) was looking better than ever thanks to one big hearted river rat, Joe Wilson.  Joe cares so much about providing a beautiful experience on the river, he even had a guy come out there to make the sandy beach smooth as silk.

Saturday morning over 140 volunteers gathered to clean-up the Missouri River in Jefferson City and christen our new trash barge with its first load on river trash on its 170 mile journey.  We had an amazing turnout.  An additional 25 volunteers worked a satellite site from the Mokane Access with Stream Team partner Mark Van Patten and Big Muddy Refuge partner Tim Haller.  The volunteers trickled in slowly, but we filled all 13 boats and sent them all out on the river!  Check out our website for the official results!  You can also acces all of our cool photos from the clean-up on our Flickr page!

A Big Muddy Thanks to Eldon Highschool teacher Jen Wellman for bringing a bus load of courteous high school students in the middle of home-coming weekend.  They were great kids and awesome workers!  One of the girls ended up finding the "Best Darned Find of the Day" for the Trash Contest, a plastic toy "Swamp Thing"!

Trash Tally!

68 Blue Stream Team (ST) bags of Trash

25 Tires (one ginormous tractor tire on the rim)

5 Chunks of Styrofoam

1 Refrigerator

2 Coolers

9 5-gallon Plastic Buckets

2 55-gallon Plastic Barrels

2 Propane Tanks

1 Boxspring

8 Chairs

1 Wicker Table

1 Bean Bag

1 BBQ Grill

30 ft of Metal Cable

Several pieces of Scrap Metal

1 boat-load of wet, nasty carpet (30 pieces)

1 big plastic Culvert (8ft long)

4 Tarps

1 Pet Carrier

1 Large Buoy

2 Toys

Trash Contest Finds!

1 Plastic Swamp Thing toy

1 Mylar Balloon

1 Hockey Puck

1 Nerf Laser Tag Vest

1 Plastic Egg

1 Foam Fortune Cookie

1 McDonald Ball Pit Ball

1 Plastic Hose Guy Toy

1 Playdo Hair Thing

1 Metal Chair

1 Rusty Spray Can

2 Old Glass Jugs

1 Glass Bottle with Glass Stopper

1 Toilet Tank Bulb

1 Fuzzy Toilet Seat

1 Bottle of Personal Lubricant

1 Dog Skull w/ Collar

1 Plastic Dog

Handful of Turkey Feathers

A String of large Christmas Lights

A Flower growing out of a piece of Styrofoam

1 Naturally Feminine Powder Spray

1 plastic Hair Curler

1 Avon Crème Lotion

1 plaid piece of a Shirt

4 Light Bulbs

1 Pacifier

1 Eldon Mustangs Water Bottle

1 Machete Blade

1 Kids Chair

1 Milk Crate

1 Metal Grill

1 Hammer

1 Headlight

1 Seat Cushion

1 Can of Sudden Tan

1 full Can of Milwaukee’s Best
1 plastic Horse with the legs chewed off

Many thanks to the Wears Creek Clean-up folks for providing a wonderful lunch for our simultaneous clean-up, and to Patchwork Family Farms, Clovers & Hyvee for providing inkind food donations for the barge team!  And to our long time partners and sponsors, Missouri American Water for bringing us drinking water and water bottles, providing educational talks on how we get our drinking water from the river and filter it, and of course for supporting the clean-up!  And to the entire list of Golden Mile Sponsors who stepped up to the plate to support the Big Muddy Clean Sweep.  We couldn't have done this without you guys!

We want to also give a shout out to our friends Dave Bandy, Mark Risch and Patty Farrar who showed up with instruments in hand to serenade the volunteers at lunch with some classic river tunes!

On Sunday, we had the pleasure of entertaining even more river enthusiasts!  A record 71 boats and 112 paddlers enjoyed getting out on the water for the 2nd Annual Race to the Dome!  Despite a foggy delay in the morning, participants in this charity canoe & kayak race helped support Missouri River Relief by enjoying a glorious Fall day on the Big Muddy, as the colors on the trees began to peak. 

The love for this amazing river was definitely flowing~~~! 

Thanks to organizer Patrick Lynn for making the race so smooth and for supporting Missouri River Relief's efforts out of the kindness of his heart.  The official results for Race to the Dome can be found at www.racetothedome.org or check our gorgeous photos we have posted on River Relief's Flickr site of the event.  Also, here's a great news article about the race that was published in the Jeff City Tribune from Saturday.

It was an amazing week, and we have many Big Muddy thanks & praises to everyone who pitched in to help make it happen.  From the bottom of our Big Muddy hearts, thank you and we'll see you on the river as we continue to roll downstream on this awesome Clean Sweep adventure!

 

drawing by Alicia Pigg

Big Muddy Clean Sweep Log Book Vol. 2 - Jefferson City Mooring

diligently recorded by Jodi Pfefferkorn

The second batch entries in the Log, recording our adventures moored in Jefferson City. The barge team continues getting the barges ready for living and working while more crew gathers to get ready for the Jefferson City Clean-up and Race to the Dome on Saturday & Sunday. The Clean Sweep and the barge have finally met up!

Wednesday, Sept. 28, 2011 

photo from the bridge by Bernie Arnold

Early morning wake up for everyone except for Jeff. He was out like a light until 0900 when Habibi finally woke him.
Steve ate breakfast with his computer in front of him. Things are just that busy. We certainly wouldn’t be here without the tireless efforts of Steve, Mel & Jeff.

While I took a can of WD-40 & a bag of rags into the engine room to try to cut down some of the diesel soot, the guys set about moving our small work flat to the back of the house barge. Then they loaded up the propane tanks & headed into Jeff City to fill them.

Habibi stayed behind to get started on the “Great Sand Removal of 2011” After I emerged from the engine room looking like a chimney sweep, I joined Habibi. We monkeyed around with a water pump for a while before finally settling on a system which resembled shelving coal into a furnace. We worked ourselves silly then took a watermelon break.

Jeff, Anthony & Racin’ got back from their propane run (which was a fiasco in & of itself) at 1600. By this time Habibi & I were very exhausted, dehydrated & sun-stupid from shoveling sand all day. But we all rallied to unload the propane tanks, scarfed down some sub sandwiches which Lee Diekroeger brought for us, then packed into the “Jimmy” to head back to Columbia to load the box truck for Saturday’s cleanup (Anthony stayed behind to take care of things on the barge).

We dropped Racin’ off at his van because he’s off the barge for a few days to take care of some things. Then we were mad schlepping fools.

Back on board the barge by 2045. Anthony grilled brats and rocked a mad kitchen overhaul & reorganization. We came back and helped Jeff with the schedule of events for the next 30 days. Better get some rest now, because there doesn’t seem to be and sleep in the schedule…

Thursday, Sept. 29, 2011 

photo by Bernie Arnold

Took DNR employees out for a morning on the river. They were mostly clerical workers & this was a chance for them to get out of the office and get on the river that flows beneath their building.
We took all three plate boats. Steve, Anthony and Habibi all drove boats. I was Habibi’s first mate. The whole outing was organized by Joe Engeln. We drove the boats about 5 miles upstream & tied them together then Joe stood on the bow of his boat and educated his fellow DNR workers about the Missouri River. They seemed to really enjoy it.

Steve & Jeff took management level employees out in the afternoon. This was more of a floating meeting for them, covering topics they might have discussed around a conference table but this time in boats.

Josh Pennington stopped by after lunch. He, Anthony & I motored upriver past Claysville Island to take a tour of the sand dredge moored up there. The dredge wasn’t in operation, so we explored Claysville island where we found a cool zippo lighter and a maglight. Both of them worked! We also accidentally discovered a great trash site for Saturday’s clean-up.

Friday, September 30, 2011 
Today was the big “Jeff City Cleanup Prep Day” Jeff got the morning kicked off right with scrambled eggs, bacon & fried potatoes for breakfast. That was the kind of energy we needed to put up the Flying Nun kitchen tent for the crew camp. How many river rats does it take to figure out an angle? I think it’s safe to say none of us retained anything we learned in high school geometry but we got ‘er up and she’s flying proudly. The Flying Nun is made from a semi-trailer tarp stretched over a frame made from scrap metal tubing (a Racin’ Dave design from 2004).

The Flying Nun - photo by Brian Waldrop

Habibi had the great idea to tie a banner with the MRR logo to it. Now people don’t have to ask “Who are you guys?” Instead, they ask “What does Missouri River Relief do?”

Upstream scout - photo by Bernie Arnold

A quick lunch of sandwiches at the boat ramp, then the scout began. Racin’, John Brady and Gale peeled off to set up the propane system for the fridge. Mel, Anthony & Craig scouted downstream & Habibi, Bernie & I went up. An abandoned homeless camp, a few log jams filled with bottles and the occasional tire were what we found. Plenty to keep a bunch of volunteers busy Saturday morning.

By the time we got back, our crew was starting to arrive. Soda Popp fried catfish – the best darn fried fish any of us have had – and so began the evening. A Lengthy pow-wow around the fire for the clean-up and Race to the Dome. Then it was foshee flying time. It turned into an early evening because of the early wake up call for the clean-up.

Before the meeting - photo by Bernie Arnold

Saturday, October 1, 2011 – 

Today was the Jeff City Clean-up. We sent out over 140 volunteers and had about 30 crew members on hand.

Veteran river cleaners - photo by Steve Schnarr

We rocked and got a good system for loading trash onto the barge.

Hauling one big honking tire onto the work flat - photo by Melanie Cheney

Back to the river - photo by Brian Waldrop

After the clean-up we were standing on the ramp drinking beers when a kayaker coming off the river asked us if we knew Steve. It turns out he was an Australian who had kayaked from Montana. He stayed for dinner but headed out after that. We asked him to stay the night but he needed to put on a few more miles for the day – he had to catch a flight home in St. Louis in just a few days.

New crew members that we had today were Jason (who operated a boat for MDC- Chillicothe shop), Kris and their awesome little boys, Isaac, Ethan & Avery. Jason works for MDC & was one of their boat drivers. He decided to bring his family along & they had a blast. We hope they come back for more!

Sunday - October 2, 2011 
Today was Race to the Dome. Mel trailered one plate boat to the Providence Access and Steve & Joe Englen were the sweep boat for the 26 mile race. Bernie trailered another plate boat to Hartsburg and Habibi & Jeanne were the sweep boat for the 15-mile race. John Brady & I waited for the fog to burn off. Then we took the 150 upriver and met the racers as they were coming down.

Hartsburg start to Race to the Dome - photo by Bernie Arnold

Racin’ & Gale & Anthony stayed on the barge and busted ass with cleaning and organizing. When we returned from safety boating we were blown away by the difference. Then everyone rallied to break down camp and schlep stuff to the barge. Tim Nigh moved in to be our cook and he set to work getting the galley in order.

Fixing the rigging -photo by Steve Schnarr

Habibi arrived in Hermann to pick up Capt. Mike Hanlin. Captain Mike has been the pilot for Living Lands & Waters since they got their first barge (and their tow boat was a Vietnam era push boat with a John Deere tractor cab stuck up on stilts for a wheelhouse. He happily offered to push us downstream for the Big Muddy Clean Sweep. Once a week he would come and move us on downstream to our next location then head home to East Moline, IL.

As soon as he stepped aboard he put us to work moving rigging around so we could move the towboat. It didn’t last long because as soon as Capt. Mike fired up the engines, we discovered that something was jamming up the starboard engine. Capt. Mike mumbled some curse at the Missouri River.

After a bit of standing around, poking around, and a dip in the water by Racin’, we deduced that we needed different tools, but it was too late to go the JCRT yard, so we chowed down on ham and bacon soup that Tim whipped up. It was good eatin’!

After dinner, Habibi, Jeff, Tim and I went to Lee’s to take showers. Did ya’ hear that?...Showers!!! Quote of the day! Jeannie Kuntz referred to the Capital dome as “the ‘space nipple’ where aliens come down and…”

Monday, October 3, 2011 
Racin’ made an early morning run to the Jeff City River Terminal to get a pipe wrench & some extension pipes. He used the wrench to try to loosen the shaft of the starboard engine. Whatever was jammed between the prop & hull was jammed pretty good.

At different points in the morning, Habibi, Tim & I found ourselves standing on the pipe wrench extensions. The wrench itself was attached to the shaft of a 600 HP diesel engine. Racin’ was manually revving the engine. This caused whoever was standing on the pipe wrench to bounce up & down while holding onto anything in the engine room to keep from getting bucked off. But hey…it worked! The log popped out & the shaft spun freely.

As the culprit drifted downriver, we all flipped it the bird and bid it fare-fxxxxxg well.

Once the log was free we were able to pull up to the boat ramp and take on water. The Jeff City Fire Dept. brought a truck and crew down and filled our tanks for us! We were under way by 1215 & heading in the right direction (downstream) for the first time this trip.

We pull away from the ramp and head downstream - photo by Joe Wilson

Steve & Habibi trailered a plate boat and peeled away to pick up the trash from the Mokane Clean-up on Saturday. Going downstream is much quicker than going up, and we were able to average 9-10 mph. This meant that any time a plate boat departed or returned the barge had to slow down. Capt. Mike was happy to comply.

Did I mention how cool Captain Mike is? A world class gentleman for sure. He’s a patient rigging instructor & a fun guy to joke around with on the radio.

We were lucky to have the most experienced river cleanup towboat pilot ever - Mike Hanlin

We arrived in Hermann at 1700. Steve & Jeff met us in a plate boat with a reporter and camerawoman from the Washington newspaper. We finished tying off by 1800 & Capt. Mike immediately left. He was itching to start his 4 & a half hour ride home to Illinois.

We pull into a perfect little spot at the Hermann ramp - photo by Steve Schnarr

Tim grilled up some rockin brats he’d bought at a shop in Hermann. Perfect!

 Quick Links

• Jefferson City Cleanup Page 
• Jeff City photos
• Other Jeff City Blog Entries
• Race to the Dome homepage
• Big Muddy Clean Sweep homepage

Sunrise over Hermann - photo by Bernie Arnold