Volunteers across the region spent Saturday, Aug. 22, giving local rivers and creeks a makeover as part of the 59th annual Operation Clean Stream. Among those volunteers was Byrnes Mill Mayor Rob Kiczenski.
Kiczenski, who worked as a trip leader with about 20 volunteers along a 3- to 4-mile stretch of the Big River between Rockford Park and Byrnes Mill City Park, said his group picked up between 30 to 40 tires from the river.
“It wasn’t a huge amount, which I’m not complaining about because that means maybe we’re getting somewhere,” he said. “Typically, we get 100 tires each year.”
Overall, Kiczenski said his group collected approximately 30 large bags of trash and two picnic tables from the river.
“It always seems like we somehow get picnic tables each year,” he said. “Looking back, I think the last four years we’ve found at least one picnic table.”
Kiczenski said he has been volunteering with Operation Clean Stream for more than 15 years.
He said he wanted to get involved because he felt it’s important to keep the environment clean.
“It’s just the right thing to do,” he said. “When I first started doing this, there were tires everywhere.”
Since 1967, Open Space STL has been organizing Operation Clean Stream every fourth weekend of August as a regionwide effort to help preserve the Meramec River and its tributaries.
Bonnie Harper, Open Space STL executive director, said the weather on the day of the event was the best “in a long time.”
“We had a tremendous volunteer turnout,” she said. “Our registration sites were fully booked before the weekend started.”
Harper said the final data on the amount of trash collected and the total number of volunteers won’t be available until a Sept. 9 meeting with trip leaders.
“From all the stories and photos shared with us so far and from being at a few of the sites ourselves, we know it was a beautiful, fun and productive weekend cleaning up trash,” she said.
For more information on Operation Clean Stream, visit www.openspacestl.org/operation-clean-stream.