CHICO — With a rake borrowed from a kind stranger, Diana Avila successfully reached trash in the bed of Lindo Channel, one of the locations included in the 37th Bidwell Park & Chico Creeks Cleanup on Saturday.
“This is making me realize I love my major, and I love doing what I’m doing,” said Avila, who is in her last semester studying biology at Chico State.
Avila, a self-described shy person, said it’s typically hard for her to do events like this, but she had felt a strong passion to help the environment, and thought she could brainstorm ideas for a potential thesis along the way.
“I just realized this is just what needs to be done,” Avila said.
More than 200 people registered for the cleanup, not including walk-up registrants, according to Miranda Kokoszka, assistant director for event sponsor Butte Environmental Council.
About 75% were individuals, and the remainder were large groups. The effort involved hotspots that have been impacted by trash, Kokozka said, left as a result of homeless camps being established along greenways to avoid summer heat.
Before volunteers left to their designated spots — across 15 miles of creeks and waterways, and smaller trash-impacted hotspots — BEC handed out safety training sheets, warning volunteers of hazards and to call 911 in case of an emergency. The sheets also informed volunteers about homeless camps and directed them to pick up visible trash nearby, but to try not to throw away personal belongings.
The most heavily impacted areas were along Lindo Channel and Little Chico Creek, according to Kokoszka.
Community effort
After 9 a.m., volunteers headed out, some with coffee in hand, with their own cars to haul trash bags. People with pickups brought large items to a 40-yard dumpster donated by Waste Management and Recology at Hooker Oak Park, the center of operations for the event.
One volunteer, PG&E employee Jose Macias, returned for his second cleanup, this time at Lindo Channel. He said that, compared to last year, areas this year appeared to have less trash based on his experience. Macias helped carry large items to pile along a nearby roadway for a dispatch crew to pick up.
Avila, who had been cleaning a section at Lindo Channel, took a short rest climbing out of the creek bed and onto West Lindo Avenue. There, a man driving a moped briefly stopped to appreciate the volunteers’ work.
“Thanks,” he said. “Thanks for all you’re doing.”
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Andrew D’Lugos, kinesiology professor at Chico State, invited members of his department and of the Bidwell Run Club to assist in cleanup efforts. It’s the third year he brought a group to the cleanup, this time with 13 members, and all huddled in a circle to form a game plan for the day.
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Kokoszka said other groups participating included Chico Public Works, high school students from Pleasant Valley High and Chico High schools; clubs, fraternities and sororities from Chico State; and many local chapters of scouts.
Patrizia Hironimus, executive director of BEC, said the event was funded through a grant by the Governor’s Office of Community Partnerships and Strategic Communications, and it “leans nicely” with state campaigns Save Our Water and Heat Ready CA.
Hironimus said nonprofit averages about 15 to 19 tons of trash during the collections, and in the course of 37 cleanups, it has cleaned a total of 150 tons.
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