TheBanyanTree: Salt Fork cleanup

[Mike Pingleton]

Saturday morning was chilly but the sky was clear.  Nell helped me toss the 
canoe up on our Vue and I strapped her down.  This was probably the last 
canoe trip of the year for me and my green canoe.

The pavilion at Homer Lake was the point of assembly.  I pulled into the 
parking lot and there were scores of people there, and dozens of canoes  
strapped onto all types of vehicles.  I was surprised at the turnout.

I signed in at the registration table.  "Do you have a partner?" No, but I'll 
take one.  "Here's your partner for today."  Paul is a tall man a little 
older than I am, and he works for the university like I do.  "I've done bank 
cleanup in the past," he tells me, "but this is my first time working from 
the water."

We are one of six canoes assigned to Sector 3, a two mile stretch of the Salt 
Fork.  Our coordinator is Tom, a local farmer.  We load up the canoes on a 
couple of trailers and are portaged to our put-in spot, next to a bridge 
along a county road.  Paul sits in front, armed with a rake, and I drive from 
the back.  Amidships are two plastic buckets for us to fill.

And so it begins.  A bottle here, a can there.  Styrofoam.  Plastic hanging in 
willow trees.  Some trash is out of reach, and so Paul and I take turns 
easing out of the canoe and scrabbling up slippery mud banks, tossing what we 
find back to the man left afloat.  Log jams collect large amounts of garbage; 
our buckets overflow in the first thirty minutes.  Into the boat with the 
rest of it, plastic soda bottles, an unopened can of beer, a tire still 
mounted on a wheel, tennis balls.  Paul snatches a day-glo green wristband 
out of a willow; LIVE RESPONSIBLY it reads.  

Styrofoam makes up a large percentage of our take.  Styrofoam from cheap beer 
coolers, from night-crawler boxes.  Styrofoam from housing construction, 
blown from who knows where.  Bits of styrofoam are everywhere.  "What is the 
half-life of styrofoam?" another canoe asks.  "Why can't they make this stuff 
out of something that will break down after a year or two?" I want to know.

The river is beautiful, otherwise.  Our stretch has thick stands of trees on 
both banks; cottonwoods, willows, sycamores and here and there a few oaks and 
hickories.  Fall warblers are passing through, and I can see them flitting 
through the tree branches overhead.  Monarchs and Painted Ladies are 
fluttering by along with Clouded Sulphurs and Cabbage Whites.  In places the 
sand bottom can be seen and the occasional mussell shell spotted.

Our two mile stretch is over all too soon.  Just as well though, since our 
canoe only has four inches of draft left.  We are loaded down with metal, 
glass, shingles, drain tiles, and other castoffs.  A man in waders helps to 
steady the canoe as we offload our collection to a bucket brigade of helpers; 
slowly our trash gets passed up the bank.

I'm surprised at the people involved in this effort.  They seem to come from 
all walks of life; farmers, professors, teachers, a doctor.  Retired ladies 
and gentlemen.  College students and gradeschoolers.   Are we all bound 
together by the river, are we all here as river lovers, here because we are 
avid canoeists who want an unsullied view?  I don't think so; there were 
scores of people here today, in canoes and along the banks, who have never 
been on the Salt Fork before. I think we may all share a common view of the 
world - we don't believe in fouling our nest.  Some folks throw things away; 
some folks pick up after others.  I am proud to be numbered among the second 
party, but I fear our numbers are woefully small.