Partners for Clean Streams celebrating 25 years of cleanups on Saturday

Sep. 24—A local nonprofit focused on improving quality of life along Toledo-area waterways is reaching a milestone this Saturday with its 25th annual Clean Your Streams Day.

The group, Partners for Clean Streams, has its biggest cleanup each September.

This year's expected turnout of 500 registered participants fanning out across 50 sites is respectable given the circumstances, said Kris Patterson, PCS executive director.

She pointed out, though, that 1,000 or more volunteers were removing 20,000 pounds of trash during the last few years before the coronavirus pandemic's onset. Even in 2020, the pandemic's first year in the United States, some 431 volunteers removed 16,000 pounds of litter.

This year's event includes many people who participated in virtual cleanups in the days leading up to Clean Your Streams Day, so as to reduce the delta variant's potential spread.

Heavy rainfall this week has complicated plans, too.

"Due to the rain, we've had to take some of those [planned cleanup] sites off the list," Ms. Patterson said.

Still, there will be a lot of familiar faces.

Many scouting organizations, church groups, businesses, parks, and others have just gotten into the habit of marking a day in September on their calendars each year for Clean Your Streams Day.

"I really appreciate the organizations that have made this part of their DNA," Ms. Patterson said.

Picking up litter — a job she'd love to see become obsolete — becomes habit-forming.

PCS works closely with more than two dozen groups, many with repeat volunteers and good at recruiting newcomers, she said.

Many gain a greater appreciation of area waterways and shorelines.

"It's the youth that really seem to take it to heart. We've had kids who have done this for years," Ms. Patterson said. "For me, over 25 years, I wonder how many other people we've touched in one way or another. It's about much more than just removing the trash."

Once focused on abandoned couches, tires, refrigerators, washing machines, automotive parts, and other large items, cleanups in recent years have netted more smaller items, such as discarded plastic water bottles, food wrappers, and fishing line. About 70 to 80 percent of the litter hauled away is plastics.

To date, more than 360,000 pounds have been removed by more than 13,000 volunteers.

"It has definitely changed," Ms. Patterson said. "It takes a lot more now for those pounds to add up."

Ms. Patterson was one of several co-founders when the first Clean Your Streams event was held in September, 1997, when 60 people removed 4,000 pounds of trash.

At the time, she was a Bowling Green State University senior doing an internship with the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency.

Her son, Evan Patterson, now a Perrysburg High School senior. "started doing this when he was six weeks old, whether he knew it or not," Ms. Patterson said.

Clean Your Streams was created in response to the Maumee Area of Concern that was established in 1987 by the U.S.-Canadian International Joint Commission to help improve some 43 of the most polluted areas across the Great Lakes region. Its origins go back to a public awareness campaign the Ohio Lake Erie Commission has operated called Coastweeks.

Cherie Blair, the Ohio EPA's Maumee AOC coordinator, worked with Ms. Patterson in establishing the first Clean Your Streams event.

In a statement issued by the agency, Ms. Blair — who was Ohio's first Coastweeks coordinator prior to her current role — recalled how Clean Your Streams grew into Ohio's largest Coastweeks cleanup.

She said PCS has made an "impressive commitment" to continued cleanups, with help of its many long-term partner groups and their thousands of volunteers.

"Congrats to Partners for Clean Streams on this exciting milestone," Ms. Blair's statement concluded.

Patrick Lawrence, past PCS board president and founder of the group's cleanup efforts at the University of Toledo, said involvement in Clean Your Streams "has certainly exposed many members of the Toledo community [to] the importance of urban rivers and streams and why their protection is so critical for our drinking water and wildlife habitat."

Marilyn DuFour, a Toledo city employee and longtime Clean Your Streams coordinator, said the annual cleanup is "a reminder of both the blatant disregard that we have for our local waterways at times and the huge difference we can make when we choose to work together for a common good."

The event draws participants from businesses such as Hull & Associates, LLC.

"The Hull Toledo office has a long history of participating as a sponsor and as downtown site coordinators for the event and we're thrilled to be part of the 25th anniversary," Hull's Kristin Jenkins said.

Current PCS Board President Robert Neubert, a technician in the Lucas County Engineer's Office, said the annual cleanup "highlights public education, outreach and involvement in our area."

A volunteer appreciation picnic will follow the cleanup at the Lucas County fairgrounds.