On a recent bright September Saturday morning, I joined a
dedicated group of neighbors in a four-hour effort to reduce the trash
littering the banks and water of our beloved Indian River. The volunteers, most
of them members of our local neighborhood-advocacy group known as Friends of
Indian River, included six canoers, a kayaker, and my friend Glenn and me in
Glenn's 21-foot Carolina skiff.This was our second-annual effort to use boats
to get at debris on the shoreline and in the water, so we knew we faced a
daunting task.
A branch of the majestic Elizabeth River, Indian River winds
through several old neighborhoods in Chesapeake. If you've ever driven down
Indian River Road between Military Highway and Campostella Road, you've passed
over it.
Old-timers say the river once had a white sandy bottom and
clear water, but its bottom is now covered in many places with deep mud, and
the water is dark and murky. Apparently, the mud and murk result from decades
of runoff from small farms, suburban yards, and construction sites, seasoned by
goose and pet droppings, and, of course, litter.
Nevertheless, when the sun sets over its dappled surface on
an autumn evening or a full moon paints a silver lane across it, all of us who
live near the river count ourselves lucky. Egrets, blue herons, eagles, and
ospreys love the river, too, and otters have made an occasional appearance
recently.
But the Indian River needs our help. That's why we were out
on this sultry Saturday morning, trying to reduce its burden of trash.
As some of our canoeists paddled upriver toward Plymouth
Park, a place we had de-littered several times in the past, Glenn nosed the
skiff gently into the edge of a four-acre marsh that dominates the center of
the river about a quarter mile south of the Indian River Bridge. Using metal
grabbers, a crab net, and our gloved hands, he and I began quickly filling two
big trash cans he had brought aboard.
Plastic bottles, white Tiparillo tips, plastic bags that
stuck to the bottom suffocating all life under them, and maybe worst of all,
Styrofoam—plates, cups, carry-out containers, and limitless numbes of
hard-to-grab fragments--predominated in this hiearchy of debris.We also found a
large exercise ball, pens, including a green Sharpie (that still worked!), numerous
liquor bottles, a wheel barrow tire, and, oddly, an EZ Pass.
I thought littering went out of fashion in the Sixties, but
apparently a lot of folks, through ignorance or arrogance, still feel fine
tossing their garbage anywhere but in a trash can. Maybe they don't realize
that litter on the street, especially plastic and Styrofoam, eventually washes
into the river during rainstorms. We were witnessing this reality in a very
personal way as the marsh and shoreline yielded up hundreds of pounds of wet, muddy
garbage.
Glenn and I worked over only about forty yards of the marsh
shore but filled both our large trash cans. The area we covered represented
only about fiften percent of the marsh, I estimated, so we left much untouched,
even with help form other volunteers. Some trash was out of our reach, and we
considered wading into the marsh, but
when Glenn tested the bottom with his boat hook and it sank six feet deep in
the mud, we decided we should stay in the boat.
After about three and half hours, we rendezvoused with the other waterborne trash collectors
beside the Indian River Bridge. Glenn and I took their trash bags into our boat
and everybody headed home for much-needed showers and lunch. The total haul filled
four city-issued trash cans.
Did our morning's work really make a difference? Hard to
say, but at least we kept hundreds of pieces of plastic from washing into the
bay and on into the ocean. We've also made the river a little more hospitable
to the creatures who have to live in it. And maybe next year we'll have more
help and be able to do more. Of course, the biggest help would be for everybody
to keep trash off the streets and out of the water. It doesn't belong in our
beloved, but struggling, Indian River.
