from the Mid North Monitor - Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Over 125 Miles of River Cleaned Up
-Ten years to complete cleanup work-

Bill McKenna of the Friends of the Spanish River poses beside a pile of garbage collected from along the river. He is seen here holding a doll that he found deposited near the river.

By JOSEPH QUESNEL JR. - Staff Reporter
It has taken quite a while, but a local environmental group has completed a clean up of a major water byway.
The Friends of the Spanish River have completed a 10-year long effort to clean up the Spanish River of garbage.
“We want the people to know that the Spanish River is now in good condition, and that is good news,” said Bill McKenna, a spokesperson for the group.
The Friends of the Spanish River, he said, is a non-profi t organization that focuses on initiatives meant to improve the quality of the river system.
“This is our pivotal year. We’ve been doing this since 1994.”
This means the Spanish River is now clean for over 125 miles of its length.
“After over ten years of work by many individuals and organizations, the Spanish River has been cleaned from the headwaters at Biscotasing to the mouth at Spanish,” he said.
The Friends of the Spanish River has received help from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Domtar over the years. The Friends tended to focus more on the lower part of the river, from Espanola to Spanish.
“Between all of us, we’ve cleaned up all the traditional garbage, which is collected over a century and the more modern garbage, which is deposited every year. This is becoming less common, however.”
McKenna added that he has received the backing of the Toronto Dominion Shoreline Cleanup Foundation, a national organization that relies on local volunteers to perform much of the work. The yearly cleanups carried out by the group, and are part of the TD foundation’s effort across North America. The initiative, he said, is “coast to coast to coast” and involves well over 45,000 volunteers.
One of the advantages of being involved with this national organization, said McKenna, is that local groups are asked to send in data to the national group’s main office about the type of garbage they have collected. Once that is obtained, the data is then analyzed at a laboratory, and the Foundation notifies the smaller groups how to avoid that type of garbage entering their rivers in the first place.
Every year, he said, the group finds some of the oddest pieces of garbage, including computer monitors, old cars, wringer washing machines, cooking irons, automobile transmissions, old clothing and even children’s toys.
After all this, he is not surprised by anything. The Friends of the Spanish River relies on a core group of between 10 and 20 volunteers who comb the waters by boat searching for garbage along the river’s shoreline.
The group completed their most recent cleanup last week.