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Volunteers will tidy up rivers Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell A plastic bucket washes up on the bank of Bear Creek just below Medford's East Main Street bridge. Such debris will be the target of hundreds of volunteers Saturday during the annual Down by the Riverside: Enhancement, Cleanup and Appreciation Day. Statewide project Saturday includes local creeksides By PAUL FATTIG It invariably looks like a garbage dump with all the trimmings: Old tires, broken beer bottles, dented soda cans, refrigerator doors, fast-food wrappers, cigarette butts, rusting fenders. "We always get a shopping cart - that's always been a mystery to me how they get there," said Dave Jacob, water resources project manager for the Rogue Valley Council of Governments. Jacob wasn't referring to a legal garbage transfer site but to Bear Creek in Medford. On Saturday, volunteers will remove refuse and spruce up the stream during the sixth local annual Down by the Riverside: Enhancement, Cleanup and Appreciation Day. The event will be held statewide with 10 streamside sites targeted in Jackson and Josephine counties alone. Organized by Stop Oregon Litter and Vandalism, the event is sponsored by organizations and businesses across the state. For instance, RVCOG, Bear Creek Watershed Education Partners and the Medford Parks and Recreation Department are teaming up to clean the portion of Bear Creek that runs through Medford. In addition to removing streamside garbage - volunteers collected 277,670 pounds statewide during last May's one-day campaign - participants will also be planting trees and flowers, repairing trails, installing bird boxes, removing graffiti. Similar projects will be occurring at points along the Rogue, Applegate and Illinois rivers on Saturday. Participants will receive a free picnic lunch or dinner for their efforts. "Oregonians have always been wonderful about coming out, working for their communities to improve public spaces, doing great work," said Erin Peters, statewide coordinator of Down by the Riverside for SOLV. "Down there on the Rogue and all over, they have an interest in giving back," she added. "They want to preserve the Oregon green spaces they love so much." Jacob agrees. "It gives us a chance to become directly involved in improving a watershed," he said, adding that several high school groups will be participating in the Bear Creek cleanup in Medford on Saturday. All comers will be welcomed, he said. Volunteers should be ready to gather at the Hawthorne Park pavilion at 8:30 a.m. for registration and work until noon. They should wear old clothes and sturdy footwear and bring a pair of gloves. Trash bags and other materials will be provided. "We should be able to get the whole section of Bear Creek that runs through Medford," Jacob said. "Each year we do this, it gets better." But there is still plenty of junk to remove from the stream, including the inevitable shopping cart, he said. The Bureau of Land Management is also putting on its ninth annual Rogue River Cleanup Day on Saturday in conjunction with SOLV's Down by the Riverside campaign and National River Cleanup Week. Volunteers can begin signing up for that event at 9 a.m. at the Hog Creek boat landing six miles west of Merlin. Participants are asked to dress for the job and bring a lunch and drinking water. Snack bars and bottled drinking water will be provided by Clif Bar and Crystal Fresh Bottled Water. Trash bags and volunteer hats also will be provided. The agency will host a free barbecue for participants at day's end with entertainment sponsored by Hellgate Jetboat Excursions. Prize drawings also will be given out. While past cleanups have yielded big items, don't expect it this year, said Shannon Miniken, BLM park ranger at the Smullin Visitor Center at Rand. "This year, because we didn't have the major flooding we've had in the past, there will be a lot smaller garbage: fishing line, cigarette butts, junk like that," she said. "But there will be plenty to pick up." Last year, more than 3,000 people across the state participated in the Down by the Riverside volunteer cleanup day. Cleanup locations Annual Down by the Riverside events will be held throughout Jackson and Josephine counties on Saturday. Cleanup will be from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Volunteers will be rewarded with a ticket for a free lunch of chicken bento and soda at TouVelle State Park following the cleanup. Sites and contact numbers include: Applegate River: meet at Cantrall-Buckley Park, 899-7155. Applegate River: meet at Fish Hatchery Park, 474-5710, Ext. 228. Bear Creek: Meet at Hawthorne Park Pavilion at 8:30 a.m. and work until noon, 664-6676, Ext. 212. Bear Creek: Meet at Lynn Newbry Park, 535-7401. Illinois River: Meet at Cave Junction community building, 592-4440. Rogue River: Meet at boat ramp at Valley of the Rogue State Park, 582-1118, Ext. 22. Rogue River: Meet at Casey State Park near Shady Cove, 560-3334. Rogue River: Meet at Rogue Elk Campground near Shady Cove, 774-6306. Rogue River: Meet at TouVelle State Park near White City, 582-1118, Ext. 22. The Bureau of Land Management will also hold its annual river cleanup beginning at 9 a.m. Saturday at the Hog Creek boat ramp six miles west of Merlin on the Rogue River. Those participants will be treated to a free barbecue. For more information on the BLM cleanup, call the Smullin Visitor Center at Rand at 479-3735. Reach reporter Paul Fattig at 776-4496 or e-mail him at [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.