April showers bring ... litter. Rainwater streams over the streets, lots and backyards of Little Rock, lifting anything that will float and carrying it downhill into the Fourche Creek watershed.
About three-quarters of the state's capital city drains into this 90,000-acre network of cypress-lined streams and wildlife-rich wetlands, and every storm sends down more balls, bags, bottles, mattresses, huge and small tires, socks, more bags, oil, dolls, ice chests and still more bags and sometimes traffic cones, TVs ....
Debris washes into Rock Creek, Coleman Creek, Brodie Creek and the other tributaries of Fourche Creek, which together run past 10 city parks, through wetlands and a bottomland forest. Trash snags on branches and collects as mounds, until the next storm raises the water enough to float or shove the crud farther along, inexorably, to the Arkansas River.
Who cares? If unsightly litter washes out of sight, what does it matter?
"The Fourche is incredibly beautiful and could be an incredible educational, recreational resource for the city," says Heather Huckeba, membership chairman of the Arkansas Canoe Club, one of the groups in a coalition working to clean up the watershed.
From 8 a.m. to noon April 25, the coalition will sponsor a "Trash Bash" litter removal volunteer day
on some of the more cluttered parts of Fourche Creek near South University Avenue.
"There's wildlife in there," Huckeba says. "There are beavers, otters, right in there where we're going to be cleaning up. There's deer, owls, red-tailed hawks, all those animals and this great gem of a creek, but no one can really enjoy it because it is so overflowing with litter.
"If we could get it cleaned up and we could figure out solutions to maintain it clean, it really would open the door for this to become this wonderful asset for the city -- instead of 'out of sight, out of mind.'"
As things stand, she says, too many people ignore "the fact that we have miles and miles and miles of incredibly beautiful bottomland forest right here in the heart of the city."
The canoe club is working with the Friends of Fourche Creek, Audubon Arkansas and Keep Little Rock Beautiful, among other agencies and entities. Dan Scheiman of Audubon Arkansas says the coalition has made progress.
"We are definitely making headway on realizing the vision of a Fourche Creek park. We have a conceptual trail plan in place. We know the things we need to do to designate the portion of Fourche Creek that goes through Fourche Bottoms as an Arkansas Water Trail. We're working on that.
"And we know that one of the biggest threats to the resource is float-able trash, which is why we're making such a concerted effort to tackle that issue."
Besides the tons of litter that rainwater carries into the woods, a lot of rubbish washes out of illegal dumps.
"We've pulled two boats out of the creek," Huckeba says. The Arkansas Canoe Club is part of a coalition working on the creek. "Back in January we actually pulled a port-a-john out. ... We've pulled two refrigerators out and 180 tires since the first of the year."
Scheiman says paddlers have found such dumps and the city is watching them, in one case with a motion-activated camera to record license plates.
HOW TO HELP
Huckeba says the April 25 work crews will focus on "the worst accumulations just downstream from where South University crosses Fourche Creek, which is also where Rock Creek meets the Fourche."
Anyone who enjoys being outdoors is invited. Most volunteers will gather at Benny Craig Park, 4610 Gum Springs Road.
Scheiman says, "We would like most volunteers to come to Benny Craig, sign in and get their supplies, and then we'll organize teams to go over to Fourche Creek over by University and do the cleanup."
Huckeba has different instructions for paddlers: "Local businesses -- both the Kia dealership and Advanced Transmission on the east and west sides of University, both on the north side of the creek -- have generously agreed to let us use their parking lots for easy access to the creek either via boat or via a short hike."
Steve Landers Kia is at 4600 S. University Ave.; Advance Transmission is directly across University.
She says paddlers can help collect litter and also transport volunteers. Most of the litter will be on shore but some can only be reached by boat.
All volunteers should wear boots and work clothes; some gloves will be available, but people who have their own should take them.
More information is at (501) 244-2229, fourchecreek.org and on the Facebook pages facebook.com/fourchecreek and the Facebook group page "ACC BOATR."
ActiveStyle on 04/13/2015