An August Weekend

August was truly an eventful month for me, with educational presentations, tabling, rain barrel builds and of course getting my hands dirty in local rivers. On Saturday (August 28), I had the chance to host a rain barrel building demonstration in collaboration with Gateway Greening at their Bell Demonstration Garden. I was rather excited to work with Gateway Greening. As some of you might know rain barrels are useful in reducing combined sewer overflows, but they are also important tool for gardens as well, taking advantage of the rainfall for watering needs rather than using municipal tap water. Also, setting up a rain barrel system at community gardens, provides more of a visual medium for the rain barrels, for people in the community to see. I had the chance to build the rain barrel and respond to questions that the garden volunteers had. I decided to build a double barrel system, with one 55-gallon barrel with a 40-gallon connector barrel for reserve water. The best part of the demonstration is of course the provision of the rain barrel to the garden. The system (rain barrels and gutters) will be set up at a tool shed at the garden. The painting of the barrels and the setup will occur in the near future, will have pictures posted as soon as possible. The rain barrel demonstration was finished around noon, so I made my way out to George Winter Park in Fenton, Mo, for the Operation Clean Stream event. I must say hats off to all of the volunteers who participated. Because the amount of trash collected at George Winter Park was astonishing. Although I was slightly late to the party, there was still plenty to do. As the dumpsters were overflowing with trash, and piles of collected trash build up around the dumpsters. I lent a hand in clearing some of this away. Apparently most of the trash came from a peninsula across the bay on the Meramec River as it flows past George Winter Park. It was amazing the types of trash collected by the canoers and other paddlers; Trash like Styrofoam, old television, bikes, and other things. Though I did not get a chance to paddle the river and collect trash on Saturday, I got my chance on Sunday. I paddled the Huzzah Creek down near Steelville, Mo apart of the Operation Clean stream on the upper regions of the Meramec watershed. A six-mile paddle and litter pickup on the Huzzah, I found a tire about a ¼ way down the river as well as a metal fence post. There wasn’t an overwhelming amount of trash, but your typical floatable cans, bottles, and Styrofoam. Though I did not any large objects, another person whom I was floating with happened to find a very large tractor tire. Who knows maybe on my next paddle trip I will find a lot cooler stuff. I wanted to give all of you guys a friendly reminder, that September 25, 2010, is the date of the River des Peres Trash Bash; An event aimed at removing trash throughout the River des Peres Watershed. So if you are around on 25th of September, I highly encourage you to come and help us clean St. Louis’ urban river. Online registration can be completed at www.riverdesperes.org .