On Friday, 4 regular badgers and 2 supportive, conscientious neighbors dropped into Arcade Creek just below Madison Bridge to perform our first mop-up of that stretch in 2024. This bridge has been heavily occupied by illegal camps over the past several years, and the damage downstream has been awful. Fortunately for Arcade Creek and its downstream riparian habitat, Alison has committed most of her Fridays over the past 2 years to cleaning the 1 mile stretch downstream of the Madison Bridge. Moreover, over the winter volunteers braved the conditions under the bridge over and over and over again to remove trash ahead of storms to reduce the amount washed into the stretches below. The results of this hard work are not simply noticeable, they are magnificent.
While the Friday crew removed 2,420 lbs of trash from a short 400 foot stretch of creek, almost ALL of the trash in the actual channel was legacy trash - more than 10-15 years old. It is now exposed because the removal of shopping carts, textiles, and other trash in the past couple of years has freed the trapped sand and silt and allowed the winter flows to scour away the unnatural build up of sediment and invasive vegetative growth. Proof? Several bottles from the 70's were found on Friday, along with many other old artifacts. There is no guidebook to help us navigate this creek restoration process, but we are quickly learning the ropes. False sand banks, invasive vegetation in the middle of the channel = trash below. Hard pan clay, spawning gravel and rocks = a clean, natural creek bed. After the winter flows, we are discovering SO much clay and gravel in the areas we have cleaned!
Thank you Ali and all the amazing, dedicated volunteers who are erasing decades of abuse and neglect and bringing this beautiful creek back to life.
Volunteers Make It Happen! 💚💪
River City Waterway Alliance
𝘙𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 & 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘖𝘶𝘳 𝘞𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘺𝘴
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