(Webster City photo)
Most of us have plans for the holiday weekend ahead, but if your schedule is open for the following weekend, volunteers are needed to help haul trash out of a north-central Iowa river.
Hamilton County Conservation naturalist John Laird said the Boone River clean-up effort will cover more than four miles of the waterway in Hamilton County by canoe. “We’re starting at Briggs Woods Park on Saturday, July 8th,” Laird says. “From 7:30 to 8 would be registration. We’ll be shuttling people on the bus from Briggs Woods Shelter #1 to Riverside Park in Webster City and then coming down the float and seeing what we can pick up.”
Since the first river clean-up project in 2007, Laird says volunteers have picked up more than 800 tires, more than seven tons of scrap metal, and three and a half tons of trash. “A transformer we found one time, washers, dryers, lots of pop cans, beer cans, plastic, tarps, furniture, cars,” he says. “The frustrating thing is, you might find a complete vehicle buried in the mud and we can’t fit it in a canoe. You just gotta leave it there.”
All volunteers must adhere to safe boating laws through the Iowa DNR during the river clean-up. There will be no alcohol allowed. Learn more by visiting the Hamilton County Conservation Board Facebook page or by calling 515-832-9570.
(By Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City)