Leading by example

Two conservation groups came together to raise awareness about protecting rivers and lakes in the Platte Valley.

On July 18, Trout Unlimited and Rivers Are Life united to clean up Veterans Island. Local and out-of-state volunteers participated in cleaning up trash, cigarette butts, and waste. High school students also volunteered, learning the responsibilities in maintaining a healthy environment for parks, rivers and wildlife.

“This is the first year Trout Unlimited is doing an expedition camp,” said Ian McCreary, youth coordinator for Trout Unlimited. “With this being the first year they did the pilot run in Wyoming, we had kids who flew all over the country help us out.”

McCreary said volunteers also helped clean Muddy Creek.

“We had people working up in Muddy Creek for five days,” McCreary said. “They came down here yesterday and our expedition camp was teaching our local kids about what types of trash can harm the parks and rivers.”

According to McCreary, there were 18 people at the river clean up. Each volunteer collected quite a bit of trash around the park. There were many bags full of trash and larger items like a chair and a water pump for a pool.

Cecily Nordstrom, a staff member from Trout Unlimited, was in charge of the expedition camp. She said Trout Unlimited has teamed up with Rivers Are Life to teach youth about the responsibilities of creating a clean environment for parks and rivers.

“Rivers Are Life has been working across the country and we formed a partnership with them in protecting our rivers,” Nordstrom said. “Together we formed our river clean up with a natural progression and Rivers Are Life helped provide supplies for us for this project.”

Nordstrom helped organize this project through local connections with the intention to get as many people as possible involved in the river clean-up,

“I relied on Ian and local connections to get the word out,” Nordstrom said. “I love doing river clean-ups because it's about taking responsibility for our water set. It may not feel huge but getting the trash out of our ecosystem is a good way for an Individual to make a change in protecting our waters.”

Katie Horning, marketing director for Rivers Are Life, talked about what her organization does for the environment and its mission in protecting and preserving the biological needs of rivers ecosystems America and the world.

“We are on a mission to preserve, protect, and inspire action with rivers around the world,” Horning said. “We are here with Trout Unlimited to raise awareness about our fresh water rivers and get our youth involved in conservation efforts.”

Horning said she is honored to help out the Saratoga community in her efforts in cleaning veterans park.

“Saratoga is a beautiful community,” Horning said. “The high school kids we are working with are an amazing set of kids who are the future in taking action and they inspire all of us.”

Jessica Meyer, community manager for Rivers Are Life, said she wants to raise awareness by getting everyone involved in making a difference in conservation efforts.

“I am here to raise awareness,” Meyer said. “Me and Katie are walking alongside each other to bring awareness and inspire our youth to get them involved in protecting our waters.”

Meyer said she had a great working experience with the high school students. She said they are serious about wanting to help and always ask questions on what they can do to make our rivers clean.

“It is wonderful to see the impact the high school students are making and the things they are learning,” Meyer said. “They are setting the example of taking back their community and we have students all around the country who came here to help clean up our rivers.”

Jeff Streeter, retired outfitter, talked about stream morphology with high school students as part of his lecture before volunteers went out to clean the park.

“We must treat every river and park like the fragile piece they are,” Streeter said. “It is important to be cautious on how we help our rivers”.

Streeter said picking up cigarette butts is the most important part in picking up trash. He said cigarette butts could end up in lakes and rivers if they are not picked up.

According to oceancare.com, cigarette butts are a toxic plastic pollution that can slowly leak toxic carcinogens into soils, waterways, lakes, rivers and oceans. It is estimated that for every cigarette filter smoked, it contains 15,000 strands of microplastic fibers.

“Every cigarette butt we picked up today would eventually end up in our rivers,” Streeter said. “It will get worse if we do not get enough backers to remove them from our parks and away from the rivers.”