“Mississippi Debris”

Here is a story from todays LaCrosse Tribune…..
How sad

“Published – Wednesday, April 27, 2005

Wanted: trash haulers for annual river cleanup

STORY PHOTO

Beer cans litter the Mississippi River Bank in La Crosse’s Riverside Park. PETER THOMSON photo

By BOB LAMB / Tribune Outdoors editor

.
Where can you find about 100 tires, 193 plastic barrels, about 3,480 pounds of metal and 8.61 tons of debris?

The logical answer would be “the dump.”

Wrong.

Those figures actually represent the total from last year’s Mississippi River Volunteer Cleanup Day.

Russ Wilson, La Crosse area conservation warden for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, has even more glaring figures from the annual cleanup days since 1993. The 12-year total is 1,089 tires, 926 plastic barrels, 11 batteries, 18 appliances, two barrels of hazardous waste, 72 tons of metal that was recycled and 101.84 tons of debris sent to landfill.

The 2004 cleanup effort drew 173 volunteers, but Wilson is hoping for even more this year when the event takes place from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, rain or shine.

Wilson said the Brice Prairie Conservation Association has been doing its own river cleanup for 25 years or more. When Wilson became a warden in the La Crosse area, he was so impressed by the Brice Prairie group’s efforts that he thought he would help expand it.

“The DNR is just one of a variety of sponsors,” said Wilson, who is helping organize the 13th annual event on Saturday.

Wilson said the strangest find in the 12 years he’s been involved with the cleanup turned up near the mouth of the La Crosse River by Riverside Park in La Crosse.

Wilson said volunteers found a large quantity of very large oil filters, maybe from a commercial tow or tugboat. Each filter was about 2.5 feet long and 6 inches in diameter.

“We had to bring down our DNR hazardous waste people from Eau Claire to dispose of them,” Wilson said. “I can’t remember how many filters there were, but there were plenty of them. And they had been buried for a long time.”

A volunteer appreciation lunch and prize drawing are planned from noon to 2 p.m. at the Copeland Park shelter across from the Clinton Street boat landing.

Debris collection sites have been established at the Clinton Street boat landing, Seventh Street boat landing, Goose Island west side landing, upper Brice Prairie boat landing on Pool 7 and the Stoddard boat landing. A coordinator will be at each site.

To reduce duplication of effort, and to receive garbage bags, volunteers should register first to coordinate assignments, Wilson said.

Volunteers should wear gloves, long sleeve shirts, long pants and closed-toe shoes due to potential encounters with poison ivy.

For more information, call Wilson at (608) 785-9971. “

Thanks Cheri. We should all pick up any trash we see laying around and put it in a small plastic bag that we could keep with us when we are fishing. This would help get rid of these problems. And if other anglers see us picking up some trash the idea just might spread.
Thanks, Bill

I agree Bill and great post Muskygirl. My daughters and I have picked up a good amount of garbage. Now when fishing I think they spend more time just looking for garbage. The sad thing is you don’t have to look very hard What puzzles me is a container carried in has to weigh more than when empty. Why would you not carry it out

Yes it is awful the way people throw their garbage on the banks in the water etc. Makes me sick. I usually try to have some extra bags of some kind in my car and boat to pick up the debris if I can at all get to it.
Did you notice all the trash in the brush pile we were tied to the other day when we were out Cheri? But I would need a long handled grabber of some kind to get it out of where it is. It isn’t just kids, men it’s women too.
I was driving by big slough landing last week and saw a woman roll down her window and throw a cup of some kind out as they were driving around in the landing just looking.
Made me so furious I wanted to go back and tell her to pick it up. But I knew by the time I could get turned around they would be outa there and gone.

I would hate to have to walk bare foot in that river! Just the lures and jigs that I have lost down there would make it hard to go un scathed.

Our duck hunting group does a cleanup on a section of the Fox River every spring. You name it, its out there..Cans,tires, bottles, barrels, car batteries…The only things that we havent gotten out are 2 old cars that are deeper in the woods. Amazing what people toss out because they dont care.