After over three decades, Speed River Clean-Up still going strong thanks to volunteers

Andrea Connell

A last minute date change and the threat of rain could not dampen the spirits of more than 40 volunteers who showed up for the 31st annual Speed River Clean-Up this past Saturday morning. Once a year members of the Guelph community gather at Royal City Park and spend a few hours picking up litter clogging up the banks of the Speed and Eramosa Rivers.  Afterwards volunteers, organizers and crew leaders meet to share lunch at the community picnic.

The clean-up runs like a well-oiled machine. Volunteers arrive at the park, join a garbage collecting crew and after being handed garbage bags and hip-waders (numbers are limited) are led by a Crew Leader to a section of the river. The group picks up as much garbage as they can in the time allotted to the task. Those volunteers that come out every year bring their own hip-waders. Next to the hip-waders, bright, yellow dish gloves were the most popular piece of equipment. The gloves are important protection from brambles, garbage and other unseen items underneath the water.

University of Guelph Geography Graduate, and Crew Leader, Amanda Press, 22, speculated on her group’s unusual find. “A goose skeleton wrapped in netting, the lure still visible on the line.  We aren’t sure but we think this may have been how it died.”

It is a subtle reminder of how thoughtless actions, like dumping a snarled line into the river, can impact waterfowl and other species living on the river.

Although Styrofoam, cardboard and plastic bottles fill the garbage bags, there are other unseen hazards in the river.

“The invisible waste, nitrogen overloading, and unprocessed storm waters, are a big problem,” said Marnie Eves, an OPIRG staff member.

“We have the best waste system in Canada, yet the water is full of pharmaceuticals,” added Christine Mishra, another staff member at OPIRG.

The human body excretes what it cannot absorb and as a result our water systems are becoming more polluted. When asked what they hoped to accomplish by holding the Speed River Clean-Up, Eves responded, “We hope to put ourselves out of business.”

Items commonly retrieved from the river include shopping carts, park benches, plastic bags and car batteries.

“One of the most unusual finds,” Eves said, “was a bag of cell phones and three coconut heads.”

First time volunteer, 9 year-old Max, was eagerly showing off “a really perfect oval rock” found on the bank of the river. After poking it a few times, it cracked down the middle and Max was pretty disappointed to realize the rock was a discarded boiled egg.

When asked what had brought her out to help in the clean-up, a volunteer who declined giving their name said, “Isn’t it obvious?”

This year’s event was organized in partnership with Wellington Water Watchers, Trout Unlimited and GUFF (Guelph Urban Forest Friends).

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