More to help out, less to pick up

About 200 turn out to clean river areas, plant trees

Volunteers unload hundreds of pounds of trash into Dumpsters. The Daily TriplicateAdam Madison

There wasn’t enough trash to pick up to keep all the volunteers busy, so Americorps volunteers had people sign up for another beautifying event — tree planting.

The tree-planting may become a permanent part of the event, according to Americorps volunteers.

More people than ever showed up clear dump sites around the Yurok Tribe Reservation areas in Klamath on Saturday.

Although they found literally tons less trash this year, hundreds of pounds of trash were hauled out of 11 areas near the Klamath River and creek conflences around the reservation.

By noon, a 40-yard trash container had been filled.

“We got a lot more people here than  any other year — 150 pre-signed up,” said  Charles Schembre, a volunteer for the Americorps Watersheds Stewards Project and one of the event coordinators.

The event is sponsored by the Yurok Tribe Fisheries and Americorps.

Schembre said at least 200 people came out to help pick up garbage, but it turned out “we actually don’t have as much trash as we did in the last years.”

Schembre credited the turnout to a heavier marketing campaign for the event.

As for the reduction in trash collected, once-notorious dumping sites have been gated to prevent vehicle access, according to Ray Martell, environmental protection specialist for the Yurok Tribe.

“The amount of stuff that gets in here was reduced to nothing,” said Martell.

He said last year five trailers were torn down and pulled out of the McBeth areas, which he said were home to dozens of squatters for many years until the gates went up.

Martell said some of the land is owned by the tribe, and some of it is owned by private parties, who are allowed to use it for seasonal use such as camping.

Last year, Martell said four of the mammoth 40-yard Dumpsters were filled with trash from the area throughout the year, two of which were filled during that the cleanup.

The Daily Triplicate/Adam Madison

Everett Allen came out last year and remembered how much more trash there was.

Allen said seeing what the area looked like after last year’s event made him want to come back.

“I was here last year doing the same thing,” said Allen, stuffing bits of plastic, wood and glass into a trash bag.

“What I don’t understand is why don’t they just pack it out?,” he said, holding his gloved hands up in the air.

“People just don’t know what they’re doing to the environment,” said Allen as he went back to scouring the grounds.

Volunteers Nick Squires and Cole Giddings came down to Klamath for a simpler reason.

“We heard about it,” they said in unison.

“We pull fish from the river, so why not pull trash from it too,” said Giddings.

Scout masters Michelle and Bill Santsche of Boy Scouts of America Pack 41, a new pack in Klamath,  brought their troop members out to get their merit badges for community service.

“We’re just out here helping plant the trees,” said Santsche as the Scouts could be heard happily yelling in the background at the Terwer Creek restoration site.

David Weskamp, a Yurok fisheries biologist, said the secondary project involved planting hundreds of trees to restore what were once massive old-growth redwood forests that covered the banks where Terwer Creek meets the Klamath River.

“The logging crews came through here and cut everything,” he said pointing to a grassy, muddy pasture.

Connifers, spruce, big-leaf maple, redwood and Douglas fir trees are a few of the new inhabitants volunteers found homes for Saturday, said Weskamp.

“We try to focus on trees that will grow out here in this riparian environment,” said Weskamp, as around 20 volunteers clamored about.

“With the lack of garbage, we decided to do some tree planting,” he said, adding that it may become an annual addition to the cleanup.

“It’s definitely going to be long term, but the goal is to get this area looking like it did a hundred years ago,” said Weskamp with a hopeful smile on his face, grabbing a small redwood sapling in a black plastic pot.