Volunteers cleaning up the Wapsipinicon

More than 400 volunteers will spend all or part of the week of July 11-16 cleaning up, learning about and exploring 65 miles of the Wapsipinicon River between Independence and Olin.

It will be the second-largest contingent in the 13 years in which Project AWARE - a Department of Natural Resources program - has been organizing river cleanups, said coordinator Lynette Seigley.

For the first time this year, Project AWARE 'has maxed out its resources” and will not be registering additional participants, she said.

Elevated by recent rains, the Wapsipinicon registered 6.5 feet at the Independence gauge at noon Thursday.

'That's a little higher than we'd like but still acceptable,” Seigley said.

With several dry days in the forecast, Seigley said, 'We hope things stay dry, but we will have alternate plans if they don't.”

Project AWARE (A Watershed Awareness River Expedition), 'is a great way to build a support community for clean water and healthy rivers,” said Susan Heathcote, water programs coordinator for the Iowa Environmental Council, who will be paddling in her 12th Project AWARE.

Heathcote, who has been working on water quality policy for 20 years, said she often wonders at the end of a work day whether she's made a difference.

At the end of a Project AWARE day, she said, 'We have a big pile of garbage and we can say, ‘Yes, I did that today. The river is cleaner.'”

In addition to removing trash, participants learn about watersheds, water quality, recycling, and other natural resource topics.

Seigley said the conservation departments in Buchanan, Linn and Jones counties, as well as some private vendors, are providing canoes for use in the cleanup effort.

About 70 members of the Conservation Corps of Iowa and Minnesota will help clean up the Wapsi at midweek, she said.

Overnight camping spots are Veterans Memorial Park in Quasqueton, Pinicon Ridge Park near Central City (two nights) and Wapsipinicon State Park near Anamosa.

Project AWARE will be bookended by a cleanup at Independence the morning of July 11 and by the Lower Wapsipinicon River Cleanup Project from Olin to Syracuse July 16-18.

In the past 12 years, more than 3,200 AWARE volunteers from across the state have cleaned up 968 river miles, removing 305 tons of trash (74 percent of which has been recycled) from rivers all across Iowa.

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