To celebrate It’s Our River Day 2013, the Upper Sangamon River Conservancy (USRC) invites the Mahomet community out to the Sangamon River for its second annual Sangamon River Cleanup Day.
It’s Our River Day is an initiative from the Lt. Governor Shelia Simon which invites communities and organizations to celebrate Illinois Rivers on the third Saturday in September.
The group will meet at the Izaak Walton Cabin in the Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve at 8:30 a.m. before traveling three miles upstream to get in canoes and kayaks. As the group travels back downstream, volunteers will pick up both surface trash and garbage which is lodged in the river bed.
Last year, river clean-up volunteers found 27 tires full of mud, sand and gravel in the Sangamon riverbed south of Lake of the Woods to IL 47. With funding from The National Great Rivers Research and Education Center and the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, they were able to dispose of the garbage and tires they found.
The National Rivers Research and Education Center will team with USRC again this year. Republic Services has also donated a dumpster. A tire dealer in Decatur will dispose of the tires this year under Bridgestone’s One Team, One Planet Spent Tire Program.
“Our hope is to do a slightly different section of the river each year so we can get out in front of the more permanent garbage, such as tires and old barrels,” USRC President Scott Hays said.
As USRC takes canoe and kayak trips down the Sangamon throughout the summer, they keep an eye on the areas which have acquired the most trash. USRC has cleaned sections of the river annually since 2009.
With community support last year, 30 people, including children came out to help work in the river last year.
“One of the things we try to do because of It’s Our River Day is try to get some community ownership and support,” Hays said.
Hays also said that while this is a community, family-friendly event, river cleanup is also hard work. With little rain throughout August, the Sangamon levels are low, which will make the river impassible on a canoe in some spots.
But with low water levels, Hays said he hopes the group will be able dig out some of the garbage that has been wedged in the riverbed for a long time.
“Over time, things work their way into the river channel, or the lowest point, and that’s where they sit until someone like us comes to pull them out,” he said.
Last year, USRC members had to use a chainsaw, shovels and chains to remove some of the garbage from the river bed. Trash that is set along the river bank eventually gets swept into the current, and ends up in the lowest point in the stream. Eventually they are buried in the sand on the bottom of the river.
Hays said, although tires can appear to be part of the riverbed as they grow algae, they are also chemical laced with motor oil and gasoline from all the years the spent on the road. Tires will also never decay.
“It’s a community event,” he said. “We encourage everyone who cares about the river to come out.”
USRC will have eight to 10 canoes available on a first come first serve basis. As of Tuesday night, they had 12 volunteers lined up. The 10 additional canoes can carry 20 to 25 people.
Anyone who wants to participate in the Sangamon River Cleanup should contact Scott Hays at sphays12@gmail.com by Thursday night or Friday morning.
The group plans to arrive back at the Lake of the Woods Forest Preserve by 2 p.m. for a cookout sponsored by the USRC. Attendees are asked to provide a side or dessert for the cookout.
