Siouxland Missouri River Cleanup 2011

South Sioux City Parks & Rec Boat Ramp - South Sioux City, NE
Saturday, May 7th, 2011

The tri-state Siouxland area loves their river, and a group of local organizers has been working with us for to develop their own annual Missouri River cleanup event. This was our fourth consecutive year cleaning up in the Siouxland area.

This year 97 volunteers joined us to clean up the river. On a four-mile stretch of river, they recovered 3.5 tons of trash!

Our two local organizers were Desiree McCaslen (from Sioux City Wastewater Treatment) and Sally Reinert (of Keep Northeast Nebraska Beautiful). They've both been helping from the beginning, and did a lot of the necessary outreach, planning and logistics. Not to mention feeding our crew! Thanks girls!

Because there was another cleanup going on upriver in Yankton, we had fewer available boats this year. But Nebraska Game and Parks brought two of their huge plate boats, so there was no problem. Plus, NGPC pilot Ken Hatten hauled trash all afternoon. That boat holds a lot of trash!

Most of our volunteers were from local groups. Cargill GOSCNA and DSO brought 19 folks, mostly families that work at the local plant. Dakota County 4H showed up and so did our local clean-up favorites, the Siouxland Mudpuppies. A bunch of local volunteers helped us with signup, safety and dispatch.

The river was even higher this year than last year when we thought it was high. As we've seen before, this made it easier for volunteers to get up on the banks, but tough landing boats in flooded willow thickets. Less vegetation in May made it easier to find junk out in the woods, and this group of volunteers brought in a lot of trash!

The trash contest had one of the strangest, most diverse batch of entries we've ever seen (see the trash tally below). And that doesn't even count the stuff that wasn't entered such as a garter and a kilo of cocaine (see the Sioux City Journal article linked on the right).

Thanks to everyone in Siouxland for making it happen!

Trash Tally:

124 Bags of Trash
33 Car & Truck Tires
3 Bicycle Tires
1 Tire Rim
6 Chunks O’ Styrofoam
1 Cooler
6 5-gallon Plastic Buckets
1 with Mystery Fluid
3 5-gallon Metal Buckets
1 55-gallon Plastic Barrel
8 rusty cans of Paint
1 Gas Can
1 guts of a Washing Machine
1 Chest Freezer
1 Metal Fire Grate
1 Lawn Mower Deck
3 Mattresses
5 Boxsprings
2 Chairs
1 yellow Toilet Tank & Lid
1 Vacuum Cleaner
1 Chinese Flag
3 Mufflers
1 Ford Grill
1 Buick Grill
1 Dodge Tail Gate
2 Gas Tanks
1 Car Battery
2 Train Parts
1 Motorcycle Cylinder Head & Jugs, Banana Seat, Fender, Front Forks, and Wheel
1 Tricycle
1wrecked Kawasaki Jet Ski
1 wounded Satellite Dish
2 pieces of Carpet
1 Concrete Block
1 Metal Siding
1 Heavy Duty Rope
1 PVC Pipe
2 Wire Fences
1 piece of Corrugated Metal
2 pieces of Rebar
1 Target Stand for shooting
1 Lead Pipe w/ Channel Iron
2 ½ ft Saw Blade Rotary
28 ft of Metal Cable
2 TVs
1 Typewriter
1 RCA 6-disk changer Stereo with 2 Speakers
1 Tarp
1 Window Shade
1 Milk Crate made into a bike basket
1 KB Transportation Sign
1 Squeegee Top
1 Highway Merge Sign
1 Picture Frame
1 Exercise Machine
1 pair of Blue Jeans
1 Golf Club Driver
1 CD
1 UNO Card
1 Wedding Garter
1 Blond Wig
1 Kilo of Cocaine wrapped in duct tape -turned into police
1 Ring Buoy Life Preserver
1 Dog Collar w/ complete dog skeleton & rabies tag
1 Feather in a Bottle