Successful 2017 Maumee River Cleanup Day!

We are very pleased with the results of the inaugural river cleanup day hosted by BCS Management and Maumee Rentals!

Several local businesses and members of the community volunteered their time and any chance of having clean shoes to give the first miles of the Maumee River a much needed cleanup.  We spent a lot of time removing trash from the shore and pulling larger refuse, including tires and metal barrels, from the water. Others used canoes provided by Maumee Rentals, a new canoe livery based in nearby Antwerp, OH, to collect the islands of trash floating at the top of the river bends.

We are very proud of all of the progress that we made on Saturday. Our hope for next year is that we have more manpower. While we were able to pull a significant amount of trash from the river, we were unable to get to invasive plants or reseeding. Please consider joining us next year so that we may make an even larger impact in our community.

 

SO WHY DOES THIS MATTER?

The Maumee River starts in Fort Wayne, IN and flows northeast through Ohio until it reaches Lake Erie. Several cities and towns along the way rely on this river for drinking water as well as recreational activity.

The first section of the river that was focused on for this clean up effort, from the Maumee River dam at North Anthony and Niagra Drive to Kreager Park, is the most neglected, polluted and generally unappealing part of the entire river.  Due to several sources of negligence, places downstream such as Toledo, are suffering from a major water quality issue that’s even been discussed in a recent  New York Times article.

We are honored to be recognized in The Journal Gazette‘s Weekly Scorecard as “winners” for our work at this event.  Check it out here: Weekly Scorecard

EXTRA SHOUT OUT TO THESE AWESOME BUSINESSES!

While many hands make light work, we especially want to thank the following local businesses who not only showed up to help but went above and beyond to make our event a success!

• Park Place on Main
• The Secant Group, LLC
• MJM Mechanical
• Old Crown Coffee Roasters

Ted Nitza, president of The Secant Group visited from New York. Ken Davenport, GM of Park Place on Main, was late for dinner service in order to complete his old tire and rusty barrel pulling service.  Unfortunately we do not have a photo of Ken and Ted completely covered in river mud and trash slime, maybe next time!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MJM Mechanical pulled the two trailerloads from the 2.5 miles of River Greenway to one central location point for collection.

Last but certainly not least, the best coffee shop in town, Old Crown Coffee Roasters hooked us up with some coffee and let us completely overflow their onsite dumpster for the cause.

THANK YOU!