Arnold Stream Team 211 is scheduled to hold its annual summer cleanup event on Saturday, Aug. 24, at Arnold City Park.
The group and volunteers are asked to meet at 8 a.m. at the Kiwanis Pavilion in the park, 2400 Bradley Beach Road off Jeffco Boulevard near the Meramec River. A light breakfast will be served at the pavilion, said Brian Waldrop, who co-chairs the Stream Team with Bernie Arnold.
Waldrop said the Stream Team will provide gloves and bags to volunteers, who will collect trash from the city’s waterways, river tributaries and parks. He said volunteers will receive T-shirts, based on availability and sizes needed.
He also said the stream team will likely hand out hot dogs after the event ends at about noon at the Kiwanis Pavilion.
Waldrop said he is not sure what to expect for this year’s cleanup following flash floods caused by heavy rains in July.
“We don’t know what is out there,” he said. “We will do some scouting to make sure there are no tanks, barrels, cylinders or unexpected hazards. That does not mean we will catch everything. We are at the end of a 250- to 300-mile river system. Everything drops down here.”
Arnold Stream Team 211 started working in 1991 to keep waterways in the city clean. The group typically holds events on the first Saturday in March and fourth Saturday in August, with the summer event being held during Open Space STL’s Operation Clean Stream event that focuses on cleaning the Meramec River watershed.
“Times have changed from the great flood of (1993) that inundated the Meramec floodplain,” Waldrop said. “It took us a dozen and a half years to get it where it is manageable.”
Arnold Public Works Director Judy Wagner said the city will try to provide any assistance the Stream Team requests. In the past, Arnold has provided a dump truck and employees to retrieve the trash volunteers pick up and then dispose of it properly after the event.
Waldrop said the stream team hopes to see 100 volunteers at this year’s event.
Last year, he said 153 volunteers participated in the cleanup effort, when 23 tires, 10 cubic yards of trash and 500 pounds of scrap metal were collected.
“If we had between 50 to 100 people, we could do a lot of good across Arnold in all the creeks and the Meramec,” Waldrop said.
The group’s cleanup on March 2 yielded between 20 to 30 cubic yards of trash, Waldrop said.
“That is no small amount,” he said. “We worked on the Big Muddy Creek. It flows under I-55, so you have a lot of stormwater runoff that brings in a lot of trash. We had some other sites along the Meramec.”
Waldrop said one of the best things about the annual cleanup is that adults who used to come with their parents as children are now bringing their kids to the events. He said sometimes he sees three generations of family members participating during a cleanup effort.
“They see the value of donating two, three or four hours for the community they live in or the river they love,” he said. “It doesn’t get much better than that.”