Last Saturday, East Contra Costa had more than 600 volunteers participate in Coastal Cleanup and Creek Cleanup in Antioch, Brentwood, Discovery Bay and Oakley. In total, the California Coastal Commission said more than 53,000 volunteers from across the state participated.
Photo by Delta Kayak Adventurers
In East County, groups from around the area came together to cover different regions.
According to Diane Burgis, executive director of Friends of Marsh Creek Watershed, she had 450 volunteers at 8 sites throughout East Contra Costa County which included Brentwood, Oakley and Discovery Bay. She said Homecoming Park in Brentwood was their biggest site where they filled a dumpster with garbage.
Meanwhile the Delta Kayak Adventurers page said they had 5 kayakers pull 254 lbs of trash out of the water in Antioch Friday and today 5 kayakers, 1 canoe and 1 powerboater pulled 967 lbs out of the Delta near Rio Vista for Coastal Cleanup day.
Here is a release from the Delta Protection Commission
West Sacramento, CA – Last Saturday’s California Coastal Cleanup, an annual event directed by the California Coastal Commission that is part of the International Coastal Cleanup organized by the Ocean Conservancy, brought out over 53,000 volunteers across the state to pick up trash on the state’s beaches and inland waterways.
Fulton Shipyard, Antioch CA
In the Delta, where the Sierra Nevada watershed converges on its way to the ocean and levees create two thousand miles of shoreline, the Delta Protection Commission staff joined the effort, leading clean-ups at five sites – one in each of the Delta counties. Partnering with the California Conservation Corps, the Sacramento Conservation Corps, San Joaquin County, Yolo County, California State Parks Division of Boating and Waterways, Friends of Marsh Creek, and Delta Kayak Adventures, the Commission’s five sites welcomed over 250 volunteers and picked up over 1,300 pounds of trash and another 257 pounds of recyclables in three hours.
Homecoming Park, Brentwood
Several other cleanups took place across the Delta as well: the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta Conservancy joined the Rio Vista Windsurfing Association and the Sherman Island Kiteboarding Association on Sherman Island, the Lake Washington Sailing Club and River City Rowing cleaned up Lake Washington and the Barge Canal Access in West Sacramento, and the city of Antioch hosted three cleanups along its shoreline, just to name a few.
“Every single piece of garbage we pick up helps,” said Erik Vink, Executive Director for the Commission. “If we can stop this trash from getting into the rivers and sloughs, and then the ocean, the better off we all are – the fish, the birds, the water quality, the wildlife and by extension, everyone who uses and enjoys the Delta waterways.” Vink’s site on the Sacramento River in West Sacramento welcomed Yolo County Supervisor (and Delta Protection Commissioner) Oscar Villegas and his son Vince, and Mayor Pro Tem (and alternate Commissioner) Chris Ledesma as volunteers. “Vince really got into it once he realized what a difference he could make,” Villegas said, “He told me, ‘I want the Delta to be just as beautiful for my kids as it is for us today – so we should do a clean-up like this every week!’ “
Further west, Commission communications specialist and avid kayaker Nicole Bert ran a watercraft-based team out of Rio Vista’s Sandy Beach Park. “There’s a bend in the river right there that catches everything,” she said. “We found pieces of boats, pieces of docks, cast iron, truck bumpers, couch cushions – in the last two years we’ve pulled fourteen tires from this one spot, and it isn’t even accessible by land.”
Antioch Marina
The California Coastal Commission runs a statewide competition for the oddest object found, and the Delta Protection Commission has a similar friendly rivalry among the staff. This year, Assistant Executive Director Catherine Caldwell won with the oddest item found at her site, Stockton’s Buckley Cove Park – discarded hair extensions. “In different colors!” she laughed.
California Coastal Cleanup happens every year on the third Saturday in September.
To join the Commission on next year’s Delta locations, and see more photos of this year’s effort, please visit www.delta.ca.gov/cleanup.htm.
