Stream Team Project picks up trash at Hinkson Creek

The project Saturday was the first Stream Team event of the school year.

By Megan Donohue

Published Nov. 3, 2009

Seventeen volunteers carpooled Saturday to Hinkson Creek to participate in Sustain Mizzou's first Stream Team clean-up of the year.

This event focused solely on picking up litter that had either been left at the creek or washed down from Columbia.

"We just start at one end of the park and give everybody bags, like two or three bags apiece, and usually split into two groups, one on each side of the creek," Stream Team Project Leader Garrett McKee said. "You just walk along the bank and pick up all of the trash that you see lying around and also pull up tires and stuff and any big things."

Emily Tewes, a member of Sustain Mizzou who will head the Stream Team Project next semester with Ross Obernuefemann, said she was pleased with the turnout.

"I thought it was good because we had a lot of people show up, more than we normally had in the past and we had a lot of new people come out," Tewes said.

The volunteers, comprised roughly of half Sustain Mizzou members and half international students who chose to volunteer, worked from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. gathering seven bags of recyclable materials, 14 bags of trash, two tires and some scrap metal, McKee said.

"We didn't find as much trash as I would have hoped," Tewes said. "I guess that's a good thing that there was less trash, but I think a lot of it had moved downstream from recent rain events."

A lot of the trash that builds up tends to come from litter washed down with storm water from MU, Sustain Mizzou President Emily Albertson said.

"We chose Hinkson Creek because it is directly a part of the campus," Albertson said. "Not a lot of people think that it is campus down there, but it is, and that's where a lot of the storm water from campus flows to."

Although litter is an issue at Hinkson, it is not a problem that is specifically prominent in this area, McKee said.

"There's trash in almost every creek in Missouri probably if you look hard enough," McKee said. "The one at Hinkson is just worse because it's a pretty big creek and it runs right through Columbia."

Tewes said litter is a problem everywhere.

"Plus a lot of the streams here lead to the Missouri (River) which eventually leads to the Gulf where hypoxia is building up," Tewes said.

Tewes said it is important to work to clean up the litter before it gets far enough to contribute to the hypoxia build up in the Gulf.

Although Sustain Mizzou does water quality testing with AmeriCorps representatives, they did not test the water quality at Hinkson Creek on Saturday.

The Stream Team clean up was funded mainly with Sustain Mizzou funds, Albertson said.

"It doesn't take a lot," Albertson said. "We get the volunteers there, and they get free T-shirts. That's actually through Missouri's Stream Team through AmeriCorps. They give us the free T-shirts and everything, so we just provide lunch for all of the volunteers."

Tewes said the next Stream Team event will be in the spring, and will combine litter removal with tree planting and hopefully biological stream monitoring.