Dear Parkway Stewards and friends,

On December 11th, our group with some other folks who I’ll identify below picked up and hauled out literally over a ton of garbage from our Mile 6/7North of the American River Parkway. Our thirteen easily picked up over a half a ton of garbage as evidenced by the twenty (20) large garbage bags, wrecked bicycles, and scooter which almost dwarfed all of us when our photo was taken after an hour’s work. For pictures of the other garbage collected, see below….

Before starting that morning, behind the scenes, there had been a lot of communication among the Park Rangers, the Sacramento County Maintenance Crew for Sacramento Co. Regional Parks, Alex Watson, Program Manager, Parkway Mile Steward Program of the American River Parkway Foundation (ARPF), and myself for almost two weeks. Jeff Voeller and others had provided me photos after the November clean up which indicated the extent of trash remaining despite our efforts that day. Contacts made with ARPF’s Watson were fruitful for a number of reasons: 1) he advertised that we would need “all hands on deck” for our scheduled December clean up; 2) he identified an abandoned camp which had tremendous amounts of garbage and other items which needed to be cleaned up; 3) in response to my concerns about UUSS not wanting to participate in any clean up of an active camp, he worked with our Park Rangers to verify up to and including the morning of Dec. 11th that the camp was, in fact, truly abandoned; and 4) he enlisted the Maintenance Crew to show up early before we arrived and for Mike Taylor to use a Bobcat to clean out the camp.

Upon early arrival at our UUSS mile on Dec. 11th, we found Mike Taylor on his Bobcat with his colleagues cleaning out the abandoned campsite which included, among other things, a 4-drawer file cabinet. Tremendous amounts of garbage were moved for hauling away. Shortly thereafter, we were thrilled to see twenty-five high school students with their parents arrive to volunteer in the clean up. They were given a short orientation, provided bags, and sent out in groups with parents to pick up trash. Their enthusiasm and participation was terrific and much appreciated. We had a large contingent of Jesuit HS students and a number from other local high schools including as far away as Folsom.

Finally, two men from another local clean up organization, Sacramento Pick It Up, arrived and, given the low flow of the river, were able to get out to an island and clean up the accumulated trash. All in all, it was a wildly successful day for our community’s clean up efforts of at least one mile of our 26 plus miles of the Parkway. We should feel very proud as Parkway Stewards and also grateful for the support of over 25 teenagers and their parents, SPIU, along with the coordinated work of law enforcement and County staff, and Alex Watson of ARPF.

Thanks for all you did on the 11th and have done throughout 2021.

Happy holidays,
Eric Ross
Mile Steward
UUSS Parkway Stewards