CAHABA RIVER CLEANUP
A PROJECT OF THE ALABAMA CENTRAL CIVITAN DISTRICT
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Cleanup
Project History
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Links:
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Alabama
Central District
Cahaba River Cleanup Project History
The
Perimeter Civitan club began a river cleanup in September of 1995,
covering a 9-mile stretch of the Cahaba near Irondale. Every fall since we
have conducted a cleanup of the Cahaba in this or two other sections in
conjunction with the ACTION club and with other organizations.
It
has been a successful service project for our community. Dozens
of workers have taken canoes down sections of the Cahaba River and have
removed trash, tires, metal, and many other items from the water.
By doing this, we believe we have improved the quality of the water that is
a source of drinking water and recreation. And more
importantly, we have tried to maintain its beauty and have a lot of
fun doing so.
This
community service event has grown from workers in ten to twenty canoes to
our tenth annual cleanup (Oct ’04) having about 150 workers in seventy
canoes. The work has grown from a three to five mile
section of the river to now working a ten-mile section.
In 2004, we had workers of all ages, including families, scouts, Jr.
Civitans and folks just wanting to serve their community.
In 2005 the project changed focus from a couple of individual
Civitan Clubs who have proven they can clean up a portion of the Cahaba
River into those individuals teaching an entire Alabama Central Civitan
District how to clean up the Cahaba River. By doing this the total
number of possible Civitan volunteers went from 100 to 800! That means
more power and more debris picked up!
The event got underway in October 2005 and the project goal was to have
200 Community and Civitan volunteers in canoes or walking the banks of
the Cahaba River and this objective was met. Remarkably enough there
were over 300 volunteers working that day! The common goal was for
every volunteer working whether on the river or making sure the event
went as scheduled which was to pick up everything your eyes land on that
you can put it into your canoe without tipping over! WOW, what a feat!
The event start point was the parking lot of Hoover High School in Trace
Crossings. Half of the canoes went in behind the high school and the
other half got into donated vehicles and were transported to a Baines
Bridge located close to the Galleria Shopping Mall.
The first group going in behind the high school came out at Baines
Bridge – five miles down the river. The second group transported to
Baines Bridge came out at Alabama Small Boats in Helena after another
five miles making the cleanup a total of ten miles.
When all was said and done we ended up with the biggest Civitan Cahaba
River Clean up to-date. Even though the same ten-mile section of the
river was cleaned; over 175 tires and a huge amount of debris was pulled
out of the river to fill up 2-commerical roll-off dumpsters! We were
all very tired and sore but very happy with the amount of debris being
pulled out. For those of us who worked hard and organized the event we
felt like the event was a huge success! No one was hurt and everyone
had a tremendous amount of fun and we made many new friends. We also
learned a few new ways to make the project even better in 2006.
The 2006 cleanup was limited in scope because low water conditions
restricted the areas where canoes could operate. The Registration and
staging area was Brunswick Lanes on Hwy 280 and volunteers were taken to
canoes waiting on the Cahaba River where it crosses Hwy 280. Paddlers
went upstream to collect trash and had a choice of the main river or the
narrow, faster flowing Little Cahaba River. Despite these limitations
there was a dumpster full of trash cleaned from the river and it banks
and almost 100 old tires were collected and removed. For the first time
the Youth Serve organization helped and they had over 50 young people
assisting both the river clean up and in the repair of the landing at
Grants Mill Road.
