Thanks to all of you and your friends and neighbors for cleaning up good old Sligo Creek park on the weekend of April 18-19, 2009. As usual we had a stellar turn-out and high-spirited effort.

The numbers were 378 volunteers filling 330 bags at 9 sites. Two other sites in the watershed were also addressed by other groups. I don’t have numbers for them. Tires were down (only 4); grocery carts were down (only 4); hubcaps remained steady; but computer parts and office furniture were up. One crew found a dead dog (I will turn that over to our CSI dept once we have it organized). In a small sampling, I estimated that there is an over-all average of about 10 plastic grocery bags per trash bag, so if you do the math that comes out to over 3000 plastic bags plucked from the park. This number is of special interest to Anacostia Wastershed Society. They are successfully pushing legislation in DC to control bag litter, and might do so in Maryland.

Bruce Sidwell
President, Friends of Sligo Creek