With our spring Sweep the Creek, held on Saturday and Sunday, April 21-22, we were reminded of that universal lesson that sometimes, on the surface, things don’t seem fair. Saturday sweepers worked with the “glow” of it being a perfect spring day, happily out as individual, family, and group stewards of our wonderful urban creek. In contrast, Sunday sweepers (33 in total) worked through quite cold temperatures and sometimes pouring rain, what could have been viewed as unfair “drudgery.” But the Sunday sweepers had their own kind of glow, as it seemed that nothing could keep them away, they were there for the creek regardless! Thanks to all who participated on Saturday and Sunday, your work was essential to our year’s plan of tending our creek.

Not to forget the numbers: We had 318 volunteers, 289 bags of trash (with quite a few bags filled with garlic mustard), and 20 bags of recycling. Some of our unusual finds included three sheets of chicken wire, a construction roadway barrier, one mattress, a semi-truck bumper, car seats (both adult and child types), a gerbil, rusted out hot water heater, and snakeskin.

Two pieces of additional good news: Montgomery Parks, who faithfully provides and picks up all our orange bags every Sweep, is now picking up and recycling items that can be recycled! Thank you to Montgomery Parks for your support of our Sweep – we couldn’t hold them without you. We also had a new addition to the Sweep team, Julius Kassovic, who took pictures in almost every section, including in two sections on our rainy Sunday. So, be sure to check out our Sweep photos on the website, they are great!

We postponed our trash data collection in many sections because of the rain, but will have an update in the next newsletter on the two sections that were able to do a count. As many of you know, we are hoping to see a decrease in the number of plastic bags we find since the implementation of Montgomery County’s Bag Bill on January 1, 2012.

Patton Stephens – Sweep Coordinator