And they meant it when they said, boots on the ground. The Clover Creek Restoration Action Alliance (aka The Clover Creek Council) will hold its first creek cleanup this year. The Saturday before Earth Day, April 20, they will meet at 9 a.m. at Yakima Ave and Tule Lake Road, the Parkland Prairie Nature Preserve with a trailer, wheelbarrows, and garbage bags.

This is an all-volunteer project and a learning experience. More will happen in the future and hopefully by then the group will have funds to be even better equipped. They plan to submit grants to get reflective vests, T-shirts, a supply of gloves, litter pickup sticks, garbage bags and some disposal funds for future endeavors. There are some sites near Pacific Avenue that are in even greater need from use by the homeless. Al Schmauder even suggested we pay the homeless to help get the mess picked up. Some landowner permissions have to be acquired first, but they plan to make it happen.

The event ends at 11am because they do not want their volunteers over tired. They want them to get over to 176th and join the noon or 1 pm hike and tour of the Tiny Village site in the Spanaway watershed. Here is the link to the information for the watershed tours.

All the water from Spanaway Lake and Clover Creek flows into Lakewood, Steilacoom Lake, and out through Chambers Bay to Puget Sound, that is, the water that isn’t soaking right back into the ground water supply or ending up in the sewer system.

To quote the CCRAA Secretary, “It is a complex system, but it is part of what we all drink and we need to take better care of it.”

If you join in, please wear work clothes, some solid shoes, and gloves. It is still a bit damp and slippery.

Their next meeting at the Parkland Spanaway Library is at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 2. They hope to have some experts talk about the challenges of reed canary grass.