Plans Ready for Beach Clean Up

Residents are buzzing about the beach clean up scheduled for Saturday, September 20; especially after four dumpsters were dropped of at various locations on Shore Dr. on Thursday. The dumpsters will be used in the effort to dispose of garbage and non-wood debris on the beach.

Participants will check in at Tamarack Beach at 9:30 a.m. where they will be able to sign up for a particular area to clean. The beach will be divided into seven different areas grouped by accessways. "This is the most efficient way to make sure the whole beach is covered by volunteers," said Susan MiHalo, clean up coordinator for that day. Extra emphasis, however, will be placed on the east end and west ends of the beach, where Jim Matthys from the Street Department will have front loaders.

The front loaders will assist volunteers in those areas in getting garbage bags and debris off the beach into the dumpsters. Once those areas are cleaned of garbage, Jim can then start managing the wood debris, which will take several weeks of work. Details are still being finalized on the management of that kind of debris.

Participants will also receive strict instructions to work in a safe manner. Gloves should be worn at all times, and it is highly recommended that you wear shoes instead of sandals. This is due to the high E. coli concentrations expected on the beach from the raw sewage that came down Burns Ditch; and because some of the debris may have nails or sharp edges. Sunscreen should also be worn. If you are scrapped or cut, it is highly recommended that you have a tetanus shot.

Garbage bags and extra gloves are being provided courtesy of the Alliance for the Great Lakes and the Portage Home Center on U.S. 20., which is also supplying a first-aid kit, hand sanitizer and bottled water. Falk PLI Engineering is also providing bottled water, and granola bars will be available.

Recycling will be optional to participants. The Alliance for the Great Lakes has provided blue garbage bags to hold plastic bottles, pop and beer cans and glass bottles. However, those bags must be poured into yellow recycling bins at the accessways and should not be placed in the dumpsters if you want the items to be recycled.

For the areas that don't have a front loader, the participants will need to determine who in their assigned group will help run filled gargage bags and debris up to the street and into the dumpsters. Several wagons and wheelbarrels will be available to assist in that effort.

Participants are asked to help keep children out of the water, which has a lot of contaminants, including E. coli, in it right now. E. coli readings from Wednesday, September 17 were twice the recommended limit for safe swimming. When E. coli is present, it is highly likely that other pathogens may be present as well.

Three volunteers in each area will also be asked to participate in the Alliance for the Great Lakes' garbage tracking project. They will spend some time picking up and tallying types of garbage they find. This information is highly useful to the Alliance, as well as the International Ocean Conservancy, as it advocates for clean water and clean beaches.