As part of the Trash Bash 2021 “From Backyard to Bay” event, five HCC members gathered for a cleanup along several miles of Greens Bayou on March 26. It turned out to be a fine day, both for community service and for good companionship on the water.
The starting point was Strickland Park, which is at 300 High Ridge Street, several miles upstream from Interstate 10. This is a very nice park, constructed in the style of the other Bayou Greenway Parks. A long, sinuous concrete path leads gently down from the park entrance on High Ridge Street to the canoe launch on a small side channel of Greens Bayou. Although the path is very smooth, it was just long enough that we were glad to have enough boat carts so that we could transport all of our canoes and gear in just one trip (see Natalie’s video of the procession.) After just a couple minutes of shoveling, we had cleared the concrete ramp so that there was good footing all of the way down to the water.
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Meetup at Strickland Park
by Tom Douglas
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Boat Parade
by Natalie Wiest
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Early Success
by Linda Shead
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Shoveling It
by Linda Shead
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We found that the daily tidal swing in Greens Bayou, which had been gradually on the rise leading up to the scouting trip two days ahead of time, had taken a precipitous drop of almost a foot and a half between Wednesday and Friday, so that the water level at the canoe launch was just enough to float our boats.
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Launched!
by Linda Shead
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On our way south, we surveyed the trash situation, picking up some as we went. The prize catch on this leg of the trip was a huge green plastic thing that was collected by Natalie and Christy. I never would have known what it was, but Christy was able to identify it as the top to a play house. After a brief pause at the place where the Coastal Water Authority’s West Canal crosses Greens Bayou and a stop at Thomas Bell Foster Park, we reached Greens Bayou Park. The expected trove of floatable trash was there for the picking, but with the unusually low water, we couldn’t reach most of it by boat. So, after picking up a little trash and lifting a shopping cart from the small tributary that flows through the park up onto the grass, we headed back north. We made many short stops to clear trash from the banks as we went, with the prize item from this leg of the trip being a large orange and white traffic control barrel that was gingerly hauled onboard by Linda and Tom.
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Heading Downstream
by Linda Shead
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Tim's Fast Canoe
by Tom Douglas |
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Scoping Out Trash
by Tom Douglas |
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Big Green Thing
by Christy Long |
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Thomas Bell Foster Park
by Linda Shead
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Greens Bayou Park
by Tom Douglas |
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Big Orange Thing
by Natalie Wiest |
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Beautiful Bayou
by Tom Douglas |
Back at the Strickland Park canoe launch, we found that the water level had dropped even slightly lower, making for a muddy take-out. This is where having experienced paddlers was really a big plus. We made our way back up to the cars for the official weigh-in, which documented a yield of some 65 pounds of trash. When you add in the other 30 pounds that we had cached at Greens Bayou Park and then went back to pick up at the end of the day, that comes to 95 pounds in all. That may not sound like a lot, but bear in mind that there had been some selection for material that was light enough to float so that it became stranded up on the bank where we could find it. In addition to those two large items, we had filled 9 large lawn and leaf bags.
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Tricky Takeout
by Natalie Wiest
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Great Teamwork
by Natalie Wiest |
Many thanks to Tim Brooking, Tom Douglas, Christy Long, Linda Shead, and Natalie Wiest for all their efforts on what turned out to be a rather warm and sunny, not to mention breezy, day. The total paddling distance came to a modest 6.5 miles, but to paraphrase a familiar saying, it isn’t the miles you put in, but what you put in the miles. We had put in a lot.
Natalie adds: "And we took out a lot..."