Pit River Gets a Good Fall Cleaning

By Jean Bilodeaux
September 26, 2002
Modoc Record

Seventeen hardy volunteers donned wading boots and rubber gloves last Saturday for the First Annual Pit River Cleanup. Modoc County residents joined forces with the California Coastal Commission and The Ocean Conservancy, whose waterway cleanups have cleared several million pounds of rubbish since 1986.

Students from Sally Clark's Science class at Modoc Middle School at the Modoc High School Leadership class joined concerned citizens to clean a stretch of the Pit River from the River Center on Henderson Street to Centerville Road. The Modoc Wildlife Refuge helped out by providing a flatbed truck and power to haul junk out to the dump.

Several hundred pounds of debris were collected, and data was tallied to submit to The Ocean Conservancy to use in tackling the larger issues of where the trash is coming from and how to eliminate it as a problem.

In Modoc County, the worst local problems were shotgun shells and barbed wire strands, said organizers.

After several hours of work, volunteers headed back to the River center, where Kaid Kunert and Tim Marske won a prize for the most unusual object found - a baby doll. Brittany Rombold also won a T-shirt for the sheer quantity of her haul, including two trash cans and a patio chair.

The event was so successful that a Second Annual Pit River Cleanup will definitely be held next September, 2003.