Anchorage Daily News

"Magic pickup makes trash disappear with its self-cleaning bed" read the headline on the Fairbanks News-Miner story recently reprinted in the Anchorage Daily News.

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Mark Schroeder has been a professional biologist for over 25 years.

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"I put Styrofoam cups ... and sacks from fast-food joints in the bed of the truck ... drive to North Pole (and) when I arrive, the truck bed is clean as a whistle," it read.

Ha-ha. I laughed all the way to the bank -- the stream bank, that is. And then I saw where the trash from "magic" trucks around Anchorage ended up. Unfortunately, these self-cleaning pickup beds made tough work for the 24 volunteers working in lower Little Campbell Creek during Creek Clean-up this year.

We all know this passive littering trashes our roadways and nearby creeks. But magic pickups are not the only culprits.

There are several big Dumpsters within 50 feet of Little Campbell Creek, at businesses, apartment complexes and fire stations. Their lids are often left open, the contents subject to the whims of ravens and the wind. These Dumpsters become "self-cleaning" -- trashing our creeks all year long.

While I can understand how plastic bags, candy wrappers, and plastic bottles can get blown into the creek, I seriously doubt the shopping cart, the love seat and bicycles we removed from the creek this year were carried there by ravens. Our creeks are victimized by the midnight dumpers -- those people unwilling or unable to visit the local transfer station. I ask, if you are going to dump something illegally, why put it into a creek?

Overall, I try to keep it in perspective because Little Campbell Creek gets somewhat cleaner each year. Maybe things are getting better in another aspect because there's trash and then there are hazardous materials -- and we didn't find any car batteries, half-filled oil containers, transmissions, or TVs in the creek like a few years ago.

Then there are the snow plow operators who push snow over the bank. They say it's just snow. But the snow often contains trash and sediments that melt out into the creek during break-up. One place had so much melted out gravel that the creek had to change course to flow around it. All the debris, sediment, and course changes harm fish. While some operators don't seem to make the connection, I know some operators know this is wrong and do it anyway. They save a buck or two, but our creeks pay the price. The rules to protect our creeks can be better enforced by citizens reporting violations until action is taken.

The Creek Clean-up Celebration is a great way to mingle with others who value clean and healthy creeks. The good news is that the annual clean-up removes about 10 tons of trash from local creeks. The bad news is that the annual clean-up removes about 10 tons of trash from local creeks.

If you combine the trash from the "self-cleaning" pick-ups and dumpsters, the midnight dumpers, you can easily get 10 tons of trash in our creeks every year. What if the annual Creek Clean-up yielded no trash? That would be a day to truly celebrate.

Until that day, I know that my colleagues, friends and family will probably continue to haul loads of junk from precious Little Campbell Creek. And even though my group doesn't take home any prizes for our unique creek finds (Who wants to lug a soggy sofa to Valley of the Moon Park?), each and every one of us takes away the satisfaction from covering for the careless and the uncaring, to make a small part of our community a better place to live and play. It's well worth a Saturday morning to make that happen.

Mark Schroeder is a biologist who has been working to maintain and restore water quality and fish habitat in Little Campbell Creek for the past 12 years.

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