It took volunteers just three hours to haul more than 1,000 pounds of trash from the tall grass and the muddy pond banks of Oliver Park in Southwest Oklahoma City.
“A few hours of your time can generate this amazing amount of litter that you've removed from your community to make it healthier and safer for everybody,” said Jordan Peebles, who does outreach for Oklahoma City’s Stormwater Quality Management Division.
Peebles oversees a program called the Waterway Clean Sweep, enlisting volunteers to pluck trash from the city’s wetlands and other natural areas.
You might not guess it from the name, but a big component of stormwater quality is eliminating litter.
“This is why you guys are so important,” Peebles told the volunteers as they equipped themselves with bags and trash pincers. “There's a lot of areas like this natural area where our equipment is not able to get to.”
If the trash stays nestled in the park’s tall grasses, a rainy day could carry it down Lightning Creek to one of the city’s 27 floating trash barriers.
“Every time it rains, we see the big three,” said Derek Johnson, Oklahoma City’s Environmental Protection Superintendent. “I can almost guarantee you will see a cooler, a ball, and… What am I missing?”
Johnson remembers when he spots one floating behind the trash barrier — a mattress.
The barrier is like a big black fence, with orange buoys that float on the top of the water where Lightning Creek meets the Oklahoma River. Behind it, there’s a layer of garbage that Johnson says could reach all the way down to the creekbed in some spots.
Graycen Wheeler
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Graycen Wheeler
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“It certainly impacts the way we look at our community,” Johnson said. “But there's other problems with it, too.”
Litter can clog up storm sewer grates. It can choke out wildlife. It can create nice little nooks and crannies for bacteria to grow in. Some common trash — like antifreeze bottles and old oil cans — is tainted with environmental hazards.
“We don't know if they have product in them or not,” Johnson said. “It doesn't take much of that product to cause a bigger issue on the river.”
Debris on your street and chemicals in your lawn can get swept into a storm drain that empties directly into one of these creeks.
“There's a connection between your yard and your activities to the downstream water resources,” Johnson said.
Peebles frequently encounters the misconception that stormwater gets treated between the drain and the spout that pours it into a waterway.It doesn’t. And downstream, that runoff usually makes its way into reservoirs.
“Our surface water reservoirs are treated to become our drinking water,” Peebles said. “And that comes with a cost.”
So the more polluted stormwater is, the more communities pay for treatment equipment and chemicals.
So even if it’s indirect, the trash barrier on Lightning Creek and clean-ups in Oliver Park are helping drinking water down the line.
Like our watersheds, clean-up efforts don’t stop at city limits.
“Most communities have some form of an adopt-a-street litter collection program,” Peebles said. “We're definitely not alone.”
Oklahoma City picks sites for its volunteer cleanup program based on need — parks with a lot of trash or places with difficult-to-access areas.
There are plenty of candidate sites.
“We have the trash,” Johnson said. “We just need the help.”
The next opportunity to volunteer with OKC Waterway Clean Sweep is November 18th at Kitchen Lake Park as part of a collaborative clean-up with volunteers from Norman and Moore.
