National River Clean Up

Beautifying the Rio: National River Cleanup Day 2008

Join the City of Albuquerque Open Space Division and other local organizations in helping clean the Rio Grande during National River Cleanup Day, taking place on Saturday, May 17th, 2008 .

EVENT DETAILS: 

When: May 17th 2008 from 8:00 AM and 1:00 PM. 

Where: West side of the river, north side of the Central Avenue Bridge.

Parking: Off of Central Ave., just north of Sunset Rd.

Bring work gloves, water, and sun protection. 

We will provide refreshments, a BBQ and a prize drawing at the end of the event. 

Boaters are highly encouraged to attend.  We will arrange shuttles for boaters to travel from Central Ave. to the launch point at Montaño Blvd.   

Volunteers are encouraged to pre-register at REI.  You can call 247-1191 or stop by 1550 Mercantile Ave. to sign up. 

For more information please contact Jim Sattler or Kent Swanson at 452-5200 or jsattler@cabq.gov. 

This event is sponsored in part by the City of Albuquerque Open Space Division, Adobe Whitewater Club, West Central Alliance of Neighborhoods (WeCAN), the Rotary Club of Albuquerque, Kirtland Air Force Base Outdoor Recreation, and the Open Space Alliance.

Kirtland Outdoor Recreation will have guided rafts in need of volunteers to help remove trash from the river (space is limited). 

If you have a favorite area of the bosque that you'd like to help clean up, please consider hosting a River Cleanup of your own!  The Open Space Division will supply trash bags, courtesy of America Outdoors, and will dispose the collected trash.   Call 452-5216 for more information.

“The Rio Grande and its lush cottonwood bosque are natural treasures in our desert city,” says Mayor Martin Chávez, “I encourage Albuquerque’s citizens to put on some work gloves and take some time to help restore the Rio Grande’s beauty during this important event.”  There are over 2,600 acres of bosque and over 50 miles of shoreline in the Rio Grande Valley State Park, and we want our visitors to enjoy it all!

Many visitors to the Rio Grande Valley State Park do their part to pick up trash in the bosque, but not everyone has gotten the message that trash has its place, and it's not in Open Space!  As our city grows, citizen stewardship of the river becomes more and more important.  National River Cleanup is a great way to concentrate our efforts and beautify the Rio Grande!

National River Cleanup was started in 1992 by America Outdoors, a national association of outfitters and guides, and American Rivers, a North American conservation organization, as a way to assist local communities to keep their rivers, watersheds and shorelines clean.

Highlights from the National River Clean Up 2007:

It is easy to drive on any of the bridges over the Rio Grande and say, “Wow, the river is beautiful and clean!”   It is easy to overlook what is really lurking in the muddy waters of the Rio Grande.  Yes, there are Silvery Minnows, but what people don’t see or even want to think of seeing are the tons of trash clinging to the banks, floating down the river, or un-biodegradable plastics taking harbor where wildlife would rather be. 

On May 19th, 2007 incredibly hard working volunteers helped the Open Space Division pull more than 150 bags of trash out of the Rio Grande and bosque.  You don’t realize the garbage is there until you have 11 rafts, several kayaks, and a couple of canoes floating down the river with determined boaters wanting to keep the Rio GRANDE! 

Open Space wishes to thank everyone who helped make this day such a success.  A special thanks is extended to Kirtland and Holloman Airforce Base’s Outdoor Recreation Services and their crews for bringing the rafts, equipment and expertise to make this event possible.  The magnitude of the event would not have been possible without the help of the Adobe Whitewater Club of New Mexico, the Albuquerque Police Department and Bernalillo County Sheriffs Department for their patrols using hovercrafts, Sage Brush Community Church, Thomas Village Neighborhood Association, and the West Central Alliance of Neighbors (WECAN). 

All of the rafting, rowing, paddling, reaching, and bending to get trash out of the river and bosque drained the energy out of the volunteers and we can thank the following sponsors for providing food and refreshments which helped replenish this lost energy and kept everyone smiling:

Sofia’s Place

Albuquerque Rotary Club

Sunflower Market

Wolfe’s Bagels

Starbucks

To top off this fun and important event, the Open Space Division held an “oddest trash” competition where we elected a first prize and three runner-up prizes.  First prize went to a 2-liter plastic soda bottle that had a living ecosystem (a miniature bosque) within it.  The first place prize was a Field Guide to the Sandia Mountains book.  The runner-up entries were a piece of a dashboard from a decades-old car, a really old toilet float (when they were made of metal), and a fire extinguisher.  All runner-up winners received an annual pass to Open Space’s two fee parks; Boca Negra Canyon on the west side and Elena Gallegos in the foothills.