Community Corner

San Diego River Cleanup on 'Get Outdoors Day'

Photos: San Diego River Park Foundation's Clean and Green Team's clean up at Forester Creek.

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By Katy DeFotis, with the San Diego River Park Foundation

We had a great time at the San Diego River Park Foundation's Clean and Green Team's !

Find out what's happening in Santeewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Thanks to the for facilitating our clean up, 26 volunteers were able to gather to celebrate National Get Outdoors Day by cleaning up their community's creek!

The volunteers worked very hard to clean-up a one mile section of the creek on both banks so over two miles of the creek in just three hours!

Find out what's happening in Santeewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

This creek empties into the San Diego River and supplies the river with a lot of storm water debris, with the majority being plastics and Styrofoam, every time it rains. They were able to remove trash and debris from the creek and its surrounding habitat before the next rains flush it into the San Diego River.

The volunteers single handedly prevented trash and the toxins that leach from that trash from making their way into the San Diego River and out into the ocean, which is hazardous to not only wildlife, but to humans also.

Jack Simes, with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, participated in the clean up and awarded Jolynn Robbin with a U.S. Department of the Interior's Take Pride in America Certificate of Appreciation.

Here are some stats:

· 10 out of 11 targeted sites were removed and way more!!

· An estimated 1,000 lbs of trash was removed

· 50 lbs recycling was removed for proper disposal

· 10 lbs of e-waste was removed for proper disposal

· The most interesting item was a dirty blonde wig with hot pink highlights


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