Our team was lucky to have members participate in the Third Annual Fall River Cleanup in the San Marcos and Blanco River Watersheds on Saturday, Oct. 5 from 8:30 AM–1 PM. Four of our members—Andy, Dominique, Kiera, and Seth—were able to split up between three different areas throughout the river to help clean up.
One group helped pull trash out from a storm drain. They found that although this trash wasn’t directly in the river, it had a heavy impact on the river through rain, flooding, wind, and more. They were able to work with other volunteers to pull out huge pieces of garbage—a mattress, construction materials, and more—but found through interviews that the smaller, micro-trash is actually the bigger problem. They also found out that most of the large trash came from dumping, both by students and local residents.
Another group was at the 5 mile dam. Although they had far less large pieces of trash, they also found that the smaller, micro-trash was the main problem. This team found a lot of confetti, beer cans/bottles, and other smaller pieces of trash.
It was interesting to hear from both teams perspective, and to hear how the river is affected by the entire ecosystem near and far.
Although our team was only able to be a part of two clean up areas, here is a full list of the areas cleaned up by the huge group of volunteers:
- Purgatory Creek 1 – Gravel St and Mitchell St.
- Purgatory Creek 2 – 1808 Hunter Rd
- Cottonwood Creek – Far northwest Corner of Premium outlets behind Zegna Outlet
- Sessom Creek – 151-2 E. Sessom Dr.
- Sink Creek – 1600 N. LBJ Dr.
- Willow Creek – 320 Mariposa St.
- San Marcos River 1 – 170 Charles Austin Dr.
- San Marcos River 2 – 520 N I-35 Frontage Road
- Blanco River Village – Morning Shadow and Newberry Trail
- Five Mile Dam – 4440 S Old Stagecoach Rd.
The cleanup event was sponsored by the City of San Marcos, Keep San Marcos Beautiful, the Edwards Aquifer Habitat Conservation Plan, and Texas State University.