If you don’t know us yet, or the work we do we’d love to introduce ourselves! The Russian Riverkeeper Clean Team is a small but mighty group of dedicated individuals who regularly cleans up the Russian River and its surrounding environment to keep it free of trash for all to benefit from and enjoy. They organize activities such as litter removal, maintaining and restoring Riverkeeper Park in Guerneville, protecting local habitats, and providing essential services and trash removal for unhoused individuals living near the river. They work year-round to maintain the river’s health and beauty while bringing the community together in celebration of our community’s most treasured resource.
In addition to being the boots on the ground completing the work, the Clean Team takes a unique approach to addressing trash sourced at unhoused encampments. Over the years we have found that evicting unhoused persons increase the trauma to that person and increases the damage and destruction to our waterways and riparian forests. In teaching clean camping skills and accountability, we can reduce the damage of people living along the river while building a positive relationship that aides in moving people to permanent housing solutions. This approach addresses the root problem of getting the unhoused connected to services and lessens the overall impact on the river long-term.
In 2023, the Clean Team, led by director Carol Shumate, picked up 206,110 pounds of trash and 315 tires out of the Russian River watershed. An additional 13,710 pounds was picked up by 822 volunteers who volunteered a combined 2016 hours of service at 52 community events. Among this trash last year, we found over 500 pounds of disposable batteries, car batteries, pressure treated wood, tens of gallons of mystery liquids, spray paint cans, gasoline and all the tires we collect all have toxic properties and removing them helps improve the health of the River. We are also presently assisting between 120 to 125 unhoused individuals in the communities along the Russian River from Cloverdale to the coast in keeping their camps clean and free of trash thanks to our clean camp coordinator, Danny Fair.
We are currently planning to increase the amount of trash we are able to remove from the river and expand our reach in Sonoma and in the Petaluma River area. The more trash we are able to pickup, the greater our impact on the local ecosystem and Ocean’s health.
We are always looking for volunteers to join the cause if you are interested in participating or supporting our efforts, please check our volunteer events to get involved. We have regular cleanups scheduled each month and presently need additional assistance with our adopt-a-road and adopt-a-highway cleanups.
Visit us online at www.russianriverkeeper.org/volunteer .