Organizers of the fifteenth annual Ship Canal Clean-Up are looking for volunteers with boats. The spring cleaning runs from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 21st and volunteers will clean the Ship Canal from the Locks to the Fremont Bridge.
The event “brings together members of our maritime community to improve our working waterfront, act on our commitment to a healthy marine environment and have fun,” the press release states, and everyone with a concern for the marine environment is invited to participate.
Meet at Dock 10 of Fishermen’s Terminal (near the West Wall) for special instructions and a launch.
From Dock 10 we will get equipment, bags, grabbers, scoop nets and special instructions. Then all the kayaks, skiffs and other boats will fan out, retrieve debris from the water and shoreline and offload debris to dumpsters aboard mother ships, including several tug boats. Western Towboat’s tug Fearless will be among the mother ships.
After the big clean, volunteers will be treated to a seafood barbecue lunch.
Organizers are asking volunteers to please register in advance so they have enough food and supplies. To volunteer or for more information email Lise Kenworthy (LiseKenworthy@comcast.net.)
I would but I have that date penciled in for the Rapture
Floating beer bottles and plastic is actually a more benign source of damage to the ocean than driving around in motor boats and eating lots of seafood. Just sayin’.
I hate seeing trash, but it really is not nearly as bad as all the pollution you don’t see — oil, grease, copper from brake dust, etc running down storm water into the lakes & Sound. Glad to see some folks are trying to make an effort, but I just don’t want people to kid themselves into thinking it’s something it’s not.
If you really want to help the water, there are many things that would help far more than picking up some trash: get rid of your car (or rather, have only one car per household, make sure it has high mpg and don’t drive it much — I know, what a concept), live in smaller house, eat locally, don’t move into a low-density neighborhood built over a salmon-spawning creek, etc. It’s sort of messed up, but it turns out that throwing a glass beer bottle into the Puget Sound is probably the least bad thing you could do. There’s even reason to believe it may be beneficial….