Keeping the river clean

Editor: With the recent decision by a Sonoma County Superior
Court Judge to overturn a 2008 Board of Supervisor’s vote that
would have allowed an extension of terrace gravel mining in the
Russian River, I was reminded that it was time to properly thank
the sponsors of our 22nd Annual Russian River Cleanup in this
paper, and to report our 2009 results!
The cleanup was held September 26, and there were 400 volunteers
on hand. I’ve been an organizer of this event for 20 years now, and
I continue to be amazed at the number of volunteers who come from
far and wide to help protect the river. We have regulars who come
from Fort Bragg and also from as far away as San Jose, as well as
locals. I have to especially acknowledge our biggest pool of
volunteers each year who come from Rebel Fagin’s Healdsburg High
School classes — there are 75 of them without fail each year and
they have permamently adopted Memorial and Kennedy Lane beaches.
There were also students from Windsor and Cloverdale High schools,
large church groups, and staff from the Regional Water Quality
Control Board. We thank you all for returning year after year.
So now for the drumroll … this year our volunteers removed from
the river between Cloverdale and Guerneville:
7220 lbs. of household trash
2400 lbs. of an assortment of metal, which included sinks,
stoves, and water heaters
4 cubic yards of single stream recyclables, and
116 tires were dug out of the bottom of the river.
To our surprise, there was only one battery and only three
quarts of used motor oil and no electronics this year, as opposed
to past years where there were many batteries, several TV’s or
stereos and gallons of oil. We have found in the past snow skis (no
kidding), bicycles, chandeliers, mail boxes (during flood years),
clothes dryers, and even a motorcycle.
What is alarming is that we remove this amount of trash and
debris from the river every September. In the 20 years I’ve been
involved, our records show that our volunteers have removed 120
tons of debris and over 2,500 tires from the river.
Our major sponsors were the Sonoma County Water Agency, Brelje
and Race Engineers, PG&E, Rivers’ Edge Canoes, Burkes Canoes,
The Russian Riverkeeper, and many others. We thank you for
sponsoring our 22nd annual cleanup, and look forward to our 23rd
annual cleanup next September!
Debora Fudge
Russian River Cleanup
Committee Member