The San Gabriel River Clean Up at the Whittier Narrows Dam

Ah! It was a GREAT DAY! And, I am so happy we (Los Angeles County, US Army Corps of Engineers, the Friends of the Whittier Narrows Natural Area, the Whittier Narrows Nature Center Associates, San Gabriel Mountains Regional Conservancy, the Whittier Narrows Audubon and the Urban and Environment Group at the Sierra Club) all came together to do this project! GREAT WORK FOLKS!!!! And MANY THANK YOUs to all the volunteers who came to make it a spectacular day including Ware Disposal Inc. who donated the dumpster! THANK YOU!

It only took us a year to get all the kinks out!!! But perhaps not so long the next time, yes?

Here are links for a paper with its supporting materials written to help other groups who want to do a project like this.... It is called

The October 30, 2010 San Gabriel River Clean Up at the Whittier Narrows Dam

The document is on Google Docs for anyone and all to peruse. Here are the photographs that go with the written document and an Exel file, which is small, that shows what was collected in the soils in the River near the clean up. Download it and notice that two of the large samples of soils, where the trash collects along the River, was comprised of 4% and 10% (small pellets and chunks of styrofoam) trash in the San Gabriel River!!! Also here is the USACE FONSI File and the USACE EA docs written so that we COULD clean up the trash in the River.

Just for fun here is the link to the TIME LAPSE video of our dumpster filling with bags of trash. And here is our intrepid bird expert, Ed Barajas showing what stuff goes over the Dam into prime birding areas of the San Gabriel River.