Greensleeves

I remember when the annual cleanups of Nahant Marsh, the wetlands in southwest Davenport, first began several years ago.

We’d write stories about how much was accomplished but then in less than a year, there’d be an-other cleanup scheduled.

And I wondered, isn’t that place cleaned up yet?

I posed that question once to Kathy Wine, executive director of River Action Inc., Davenport, which was spearheading the cleanups then. She just smiled.

Just as cleaning your house isn’t once and for all, neither is cleaning a marsh.

In fact, it’s much less so. It’s an ongoing mission and there are occasionally new challenges that one doesn’t anticipate, such as debris brought in by flooding or new invasive species.

I am happy to report that much was accomplished – again – at the most recent cleanup on Satur-day (May 2, 2009).

Here is a report filed by Arnie Christian, of Friends of Nahant Marsh:

“We had an estimated 60 people doing all sorts of work on a beautiful day,” he says.
Folks cleaning up Wapello Avenue to Iowa 22 and Wapello Avenue to Concord Street and the In-terstate 280 overpass recovered:

 * 15 tires

* 3 TVs

* A school desk

* A baby chair

* A pallet

* Old clothes

* Paint cans

* And enough cans, bottles (plastic and glass) and Styrofoam containers to fill 20 plus big trash bags donated by Farm and Fleet

In addition:

* Volunteers pulled GARLIC MUSTARD along the trail.

* About 20 people removed invasive cottonwoods and willows from the front prairie.
(Cotton-woods and willows can be fine trees, but not when you’re trying to maintain a prairie ecosystem).

* About six people dragged branches and cut-up trunks of trees blown down west of the bird blind and put mulch on the butterfly garden.

“It was a rewarding day for the environment and great to see about 20 pelicans in view all day,” Arnie continues.

“Hy-Vee of Rockingham Road generously donated six dozen doughnuts that provided some start-up energy for all volunteers and the Dr. Pepper-Sprite Bottling Co. across from Nahant donated five cases of water.”

Volunteers came from the Optimists, Defiant/SADD groups, Boy Scouts from the St. Matthew’s Lutheran Church, Davenport, the RSVP organization and Sierra Club.

More opportunities

In case you missed the cleanup day and would like to help, members of Friends of Nahant Marsh meet for workdays just about every Saturday morning; the next ones will be May 16, 23 and 30.

And if you’d like to listen to frog calls and other mysterious night sounds at the marsh, join re-searcher Jennifer Anderson for an interesting evening on May 22.

For more on Nahant, visit this Web site.
Also:

The Wapsi River Environmental Education Center, 31555 52nd Ave., Dixon, Iowa, has a spring work day planned too. Volunteers of all skill levels are needed to clean up habitat and work on erosion control improvements. Chili will be served for lunch.

For more information, call (536) 328-3286. For more on the center, visit this Web site.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 2:15 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.