October 19, 2011 Vol. 90 No. 42
Join in the “trashy” fun on Saturday, October 29 at the Columbia Bottom Conservation Area.
Big Muddy Clean Sweep
Green Up!
Information courtesy of Missouri River Relief
IN this Issue
Missouri River Relief ’s tenth anniversary flagship project, the Big Muddy Clean Sweep, will conclude at the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers on Saturday, October 29. It began with a community-based cleanup that included hundreds of volunteers on Saturday, October 1 in Jefferson City. The event was punctuated with stops at four river towns along the way – Jefferson City (September 26-October 2), Hermann (October 3-9), Washington (October 10-16), and St. Charles (October 17-23). The organization brought a sand barge upstream to haul the collected trash and debris to terminals on the Mississippi River for recycling or proper disposal at landfills. The week-long moorings enabled Missouri River Relief to conduct community-based cleanups with hundreds of local volunteers, educational field trips, river festivals, barge tours and celebrations. In addition to the sand barge, the Missouri River Relief team has lived on a quarters barge with office and storage space, cabins, a galley and a bathroom. Both barges were pushed by a towboat named “River Cleanup” provided by Living Lands & Waters, an equipmentbased organization similar to Missouri River Relief that conducts cleanups on the Mississippi, Illinois, Ohio and many other rivers. The LL&W founder, Chad Pregracke, inspired the creation of MoRR at the first big Missouri River cleanup on October 6, 2001. He was instrumental for the event’s success by bringing his boats, barges and crew to Easley, Mo., where 300 volunteers removed 30 tons of trash The first Clean Sweep cleanups originally were planned in Kansas City and Cooper’s Landing in Boone County, but due to high river levels and flooding this year, the project started in a leapfrog manner. The first cleanup occurred Around Town . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2-5 School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6-7
Saturday, September 10 in Kansas City from land-based sites instead of by boat. More than 250 volunteers cleaned up an estimated seven tons of trash from 11 sites, including several public parks ravaged by flooding. The second series of cleanups happened Sept. 17-25 at Cooper’s Landing while the barge fleet was being transported upstream with a towboat provided by Hermann Sand and Gravel Company. This boat-based cleanup brought 186 volunteers on the river to remove 50 tires, a half-ton of scrap metal and 2.6 tons of trash. MoRR and the Big Muddy Clean Sweep is the result of partnership, sponsors and volunteers who support the effort with time, energy, money and materials. Golden Mile sponsors, donating $10,000 or more to the Clean Sweep include Boeing, 3M, Missouri American Water, Solid Waste Management Districts, the Missouri Department of Conservation, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources and Pat Jones. A complete list can be seen at the MoRR website www.riverrelief.org. Learn & Play/Movie . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8-9 Joe Morice/Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2139 Bryan Valley Commercial Dr. • O’Fallon, MO 63366
Missouri River Relief ’s tenth anniversary will serve as a springboard for future growth, building on existing partnerships and identifying key individuals and organizations in communities to
Photo by Vicki Richmond
form a coalition of Missouri River Action Teams (MoRATs) interested in improving the health and beauty of the Missouri River for decades to come. See CLEAN SWEEP page 24
Movie Talk
See Movie page 9
“The Big Year” - Photo courtesy of 20th Century Fox
Shelly Schnieder/Recipe . . . . . . . . . 11 What’s Happening . . . . . . . . . . . 12-13
P: 636-379-1775 • FX: 636-379-1632
Classifieds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14-15
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