Washington & St. Charles Clean Sweep Results

After a packed but incredible week of education and outreach in Washington, MO, we ramped up our energy into working a river clean-up on Saturday side-by-side the Washington River Festival put on for the last 3 years by our favorite river ambassadors, Gloria Attoun-Bauermeister and Mike Smith.  These two friends have really been working on growing a community of river lovers in Washington, an awareness for this powerful resource, as it should be, the river is the heart of this lovely little riverfront town.

Many of the children that had come out to the riverside education experience earier in the week came back with their families just itching to get out on the river and help us clean it up! The turnout was fantastic!  76 volunteers in addition to 8 people from Kohl's department store + 26 from the River Relief crew teamed up to clean the river!

Plus, Gloria put together an amazing River Festival, with educational booths, fun activities for families, trash to art in action and REALLY GREAT MUSIC! 

Here's the Washington tally!

110 clean-up volunteers went out on the river to clean up 9 miles with 3 River Relief boats signing up in shifts at the river festival.  133 bags of trash were collected from the river banks alongside 44 tires, 7 hunks o' styrofoam, 3 refrigerators, 1 microwave, 1 push mower, 1 black & white TV, pesticide sprayers, duck decoys, metal drums... the list goes on & on!

Check out the full set of Washington photos on our Flickr page!

A big muddy thanks to all of the super nice folks in Washington that made our stay a warm one.  There are many, but a few outstanding ones that come to mind are Cheryl Heggemann at Manwell's coffee, the Washington boat club, the police & fire departments, the schools and teachers that participated, the Labadie Chef & crew, Mayor Lucy & Gary Lucy, trash-to-art artists Joey Los & Gale, and of course all of the hard working volunteers, Gloria Bauermeister & Mike Smith!

With warmed hearts & full bellies, we rolled on down to St. Charles... and moored at the Gateway Dredging Co. in Bridgeton.  I enjoyed taking our barge dog Sombra on walks along the beautiful little riverside trail in the Riverwoods Conservation Area, where I had the pleasure of seeing some really cool old growth willow, cottonwoods, and mulberry trees!
Unfortunately, there was a beaver at work on some of those massive trees.

We really got down & dirty in St. Charles, starting with a crew clean-up on Friday that netted 3 boatloads of junk to include a potato planter farm implement, a john boat and a porta potty!

On Saturday, we took out 75 volunteers in two shifts and continued collecting massive piles of trash that had been washed in along the shores, also cleaning out old dump sites we found along the way.  27 employees from Boeing helped make a huge dent in our Clean Sweep efforts in St. Charles and a nice reporter from the St. Louis Today website came out to help document our work.

On Sunday the River Relief barge team hauled trash from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. collecting 149 bags of trash, 87 tires, 79 hunks of metal, barrels, car parts... even a riding lawn mower!  My back still hurts!  But the trash barge is finally starting to fill up.

Check out the full set of St. Charles photos on our Flickr page!

We wrapped things up in St. Charles on Tuesday and headed for the Confluence to complete our final week of the Big Muddy Clean Sweep.  The barge is moored just across from the boat ramp at Columbia Bottoms.  Join us for our final big clean-up this Saturday and help us fill the trash barge and finish this unique event as part of Missouri River Relief's 10th anniversary project.  We'll be posting final results and the full trash tally soon!  Thanks for jumping on board and being a part of this wonderful adventure!  See you on the River~

Downstream to Washington!

Big Muddy Clean Sweep
Rennick Riverfront Park, Washington, MO
Rivermile 68
October 10-12, 2011

Washington sunrise. photo by Melanie Cheney

One of our favorite river towns is also a place that uses the river the most. The busy Washington boat ramp has a brutal current, and is difficult for motorboaters and paddlers alike to launch and land. Yet it sees more traffic than any other Missouri River access in the state.

But the reason we love it here is the people. We have been so lucky to become friends of wonderful batch of folks here that have made it part of their mission in life to welcome River Relief to town, and to pave the way for our easy travel there.

Gloria Bauermeister decided to become our Washington ambassador for the Clean Sweep. She worked up a diverse series of events in town, bringing a huge slice of Washington down to the river to become part of this journey. It all started off with a wonderful welcoming party at MannWell’s coffeehouse…always my first stop when I come by Washington by boat. Cheryl, the owner, baked up a blackberry cobbler with berries she saved in the freezer from the summer, and a whole bunch of people filled a table with wonderful appetizers.

The Washington mayor, Sandy Lucy, read off a proclamation declaring this to be “Missouri River Week” in the town and welcomed our trash barge crew. It was a humbling experience for sure. On display at MannWell’s is an intricate quilt, formed of squares patched together by a long list of fiber artists from across the state called the Rambling River Quilters. Each created a window into a vibrant river world, all designed to stitch together perfectly into a wild flowing river that spilled across the coffeehouse wall.

Then we headed back to the barge mooring, and lit up a sweet little campfire in the sandpiles of an old sand plant. Mike Smith brought a truckload of firewood and Gloria and her husband Michael whipped out some sweet tunes on guitar, mandolin and banjo. So perfect as the full moon popped in and out of the gathering clouds.

Wednesday started our series of education events with local students. Most were able to walk down from Immanuel Lutheran and Fifth St. Elementary. We had one booth about the changes of the river in the past couple hundred years and one about our work as river trash cleaners. Colby Wrasse and Brian from the Columbia Fish & Wildlife Conservation Office set up shop in the parking lot with a tank of live wild fish caught the day before describing the conservation challenges that faced each species.

Tim Nigh and Jodi Pfefferkorn explain the ins & outs of trash getting. photo by Melanie Cheney

Colby Wrasse (USFWS) shows students a shovelnose sturgeon. photo by Melanie Cheney

Lunch was followed by a presentation by the World Bird Sanctuary, featuring a smattering of native birds of prey…kestrel, red-tailed hawk, barn own and turkey vulture. The kids sat on straw bales as the trained birds flew above their heads, tapping their shoulders as they zoomed by. They loved it.

As our afternoon shift of presentations ended, our attention shifted to the Missouri River 340. Several of our crew were out there, with near sleepless nights camping on the banks and tending to the courageous racers. (To follow the race, check out the race forum: http://rivermiles.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1318251963/all-0 )

We filled a couple checkpoint holes (and witnessed a gorgeous golden rainbow sunset) before getting back to the barge. Jodi’s mom and sis, and Colby Wrasse stopped by for dinner on the barge (whoa! Baked salmon with herbed white sauce…thanks Tim Nigh!)

Rain started to fall as we headed indoors, warm and dry, thinking of our buddies and all the paddlers out there on the river and hoping they are all keeping safe and loving their river time.