Volunteers help clear city waterways of litter

Her best find: a slimy, naked doll tangled in twigs that she called "River Trash Barbie."

"She was swimming," said Galiano, who first gave her name as Salmon Ella, as she's known on the Rage City Rollergirls. She was sporting a team T-shirt.

Galiano was one of hundreds of city residents participating Saturday in the Anchorage Waterways Council's annual Creek Cleanup at 17 locations from Eagle River to Girdwood.

The good news: Initial reports are that the amount of litter in the city's creeks is down this year.

Holly Kent, executive director of the waterways council, said about 10 tons was collected in last year's cleanup, and there's maybe a ton or two less this year.

"They really get pretty clean after this," Kent said. But "by the end of the summer, they get nasty again." The council is the only entity in Anchorage that regularly monitors the water quality of creeks and lakes, she said. Eight bodies are "impaired," she said.

Mary Hertert, a waterways council board member, eyed the trash for special traits -- strangeness, colorfulness, being well-traveled.

She was the judge for the best trash awards handed out at the after-cleanup celebration and cookout at Valley of the Moon Park. A bluegrass band, Full Sail, played on stage. A juggler performed. Kids got their faces painted and played on big inflatable toys. Their parents bought them treats from the ice cream trucks that lined up.

River Trash Barbie maybe would have won, if only there was a bad hair day category, Hertert joked.

Trophies were crumpled cans painted gold on a piece of scrap wood with the award written on duct tape. For that, a tote bag and a Bear Tooth gift card, cleanup volunteers were playful competitors.

Especially the Girl Scouts. Members of Girl Scout Troop 10 of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton have been part of the creek cleanup since they were in kindergarten, five years ago.

"We found pizza!" exclaimed Aunica Campbell, 10. "You could still see the cheese on it."

Her group of seven Scouts, three moms and someone's sibling cleaned up Campbell Creek behind the Peanut Farm.

The Scouts made three big displays of recovered junk for the competition. There were rows of shoes, mainly flip-flops. A bright orange sled filled with children's toys, including a Frisbee, a tugboat and a giant Tonka truck, all of which won for most colorful. And a blowup mattress, which won for biggest, beating out an oversized suitcase and a mud flap off a semi truck.

Some of the Scouts said they were amazed at all the trash, even after doing it so many years.

Some of the entries made little statements. An empty bottle of aged port, next to a Big Mac container. A Corona beer bottle, still full, with a lemon. An iPod, whose finder imagined the last song played was ABBA's "SOS."

A single white Nike, size 8, offered lessons in geography and economics. A couple found it at Chester Creek, right by the park. They wrote on their entry that it had been made in Vietnam three years ago, traveled to Hong Kong by ship, then to Seattle and finally to Anchorage. Some 14,000 miles, they wrote.

But the well-traveled award went to Lorna Beardall, who entered a found coconut, some mushy fruit and a faded silk flower lei.

The funniest? A wedding CD and a matching metal case, found one-half mile apart. "So much for that wedding!" a group calling itself the Bobo Bunch wrote on the entry.

The strangest item from the creek was the hardest to decide, said judge Hertert. Most of the trash items -- the Grinch head, the old-fashioned egg beater, the crutch -- are odd mainly because they shouldn't be in a creek. So with that in mind, she picked Gail French's contender: a computer printer.

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Find Lisa Demer online at adn.com/contact/ldemer or call 257-4390.

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Lost and found

So, what sort of quirky and gross stuff ends up in Anchorage’s creeks? A sampling of items found in the citywide Creek Cleanup on Saturday.

• Bra, still hooked;

• Many flip-flops, all missing their mates;

• Tiny crucifix, hooked to a little box containing a dead pet bird and some toys;

• Teddy bear, missing a leg and an arm, with a noose around its neck;

• White Nissan Sentra — not a toy, a real car — in Rabbit Creek;

• Kitty litter box;

• Old-fashioned egg beater;

• Little girl’s pink and purple bike, high up in a birch tree that must have arched to the ground when heavy with snow;

• Grinch head;

• A 55-gallon drum containing oily nastiness;

• And, in one short stretch of Chester Creek: 15 tires, two shopping carts and three sheets of plywood.