Clark County Chapter of Friends of the Black River Hold Successful Clean Up

Friday, April 23rd, 2021 -- 12:00 PM

-The Clark County Chapter of the Friends of the Black River held another successful clean up event this past Saturday.

Adam Marciniak, one of the founders of the Clark County Chapter, talked about the volunteers they had and some of the items they found.

Adam:  “We had a very good turnout this past Saturday.  Between the three cities (Owen, Greenwood, and Neillsville) we had 38 volunteers show up for the clean up.  There were 16 in Neillsville, 16 in Owen, and 6 in Greenwood.  And we were able to accomplish quite a bit."

"We got between 50 and 75 tires out of the environment, a refrigerator, 50 plus cubic yards of trash, two or three trailer loads of metal, a mattress, and just various other random items.  We had a good day”

Question:  “With this clean up, did you do sections along the river or the trails leading to the river as well?”

Adam:  “A little bit of everything actually.  We kinda expanded some of our area this year, especially in the Neillsville area because of the expansion to the two other cities.  We covered mostly landings, road crossings on the river, and some public land adjacent to the river."

"And then this year, in the Neillsville area, we went around to some of the bridge crossings at the creeks that lead into the Black River and found TV’s and different things like that in those creeks.  It was good to get a further reach this year with that expansion.”

Question:  “How did this year compare to the other years you’ve done the clean up?”

Adam:  “Greenwood was actually rather clean.  There wasn’t a whole lot of areas.  And Neillsville was a fair amount cleaner.  We expanded out to those road crossings on the creek because some of our normal areas, we’ve gotten through some of the old dump piles and some of it has gotten a little bit better."

"We do have our problem areas here in Neillsville, Hill and River Road that run on the backside of town definitely need more eyes on it.  Two days later there was an entire shopping bag filled with beer cans that I collected on Monday."

"And that was the disheartening part of it, finding that much that soon.  But we get the right watchful eyes back there and cooperation with law enforcement to patrol those areas a little more often and we’re turning the corner to becoming a much cleaner county.”

Question:  “All though not an excuse, maybe some people don’t know where to take some of the trash they have.  Do you know of places off the top of your head?”

Adam:  “Even though scrap prices aren’t the best, there’s Clark Recycling on Highway 10 by Neillsville that takes metal and stuff.  I believe they take refrigerators and stuff at a cost."

"TV’s and stuff, there’s less and less programs and recycling places throughout, but there is a place in Spencer for electronics.  Tires, you can get rid of at any place that changes tires.  You don’t have to take them with you."

"It’s a very minimal fee to leave them there instead of trying to figure out where to go with them.  Our goal in the near future is to start holding educational type meetings and presentations for the communities and these are definitely some of the issues that would come up first on the list for presenters.  Where to go with some of this stuff and what’s the proper way to deal with these things.”

Question:  “Doing this interview today, (Thursday, April 22nd) it is Earth Day today.  Can you talk about the importance of keeping our waterways clean?

Adam:  “Absolutely.  The obvious benefit is the beauty of the river, not seeing all of that while you’re out there is kinda the obvious thing.  A lot of the trash nowadays is a little more detrimental to the environment than the trash of the past when these habits formed."

"Everyone would take their whatnot out to the woods and pile it on their farm property and those habits have come through the generations.  But as people move to town and don’t have that family woods to go to, they start going to public woods and with all the different chemicals in these plastics and just chemicals period, it’s not the kind of stuff that’s acceptable to be dumped the way it is anymore."

"We all need clean drinking water for us, our pets, our farm animals.  This river isn’t just important to one group of people, it’s important to the entire county.”

Question:  “We talked about this last time we spoke, but you guys have some paddling events coming up.  Can you remind people about those?”

Adam:  “Yeah, we have several paddles throughout the county slotted for the summer.  I don’t have exact dates offhand, but those can be found on our Facebook Friends of the Black River Clark County Page or the Friends of the Black River Wisconsin Page, that’s the Jackson County group, and that can direct you to some of the posts or right to our website where you can find those dates.  There’s all sorts.  There’s whitewater, there’s mixed paddles, and flat water paddles too.”

Question:  “The last time we spoke, we talked about a sign project you guys are working on.  Are there any other projects you’d like to highlight?”

Adam:  “I’m proposing a walking trail on city property in Neillsville by the Water Treatment Plant as a part of their Strategic Plan.  And then there’s talks in the Owen area for us to work with the City of Owen to see what we can do to make the Popal River a more paddable river by getting deadfall taken out of the river and open that up for more tourism in that area.”

Question:  “Anything else?”

Adam:  “Right now, we’re having a fundraising sale through JBC Screen Printing with Friends of the Black River gear (like sweatshirts, t-shirts, hats) to raise money so we can afford to dispose of TVs, refrigerators, and things of that nature we find in clean ups and help us with our day-to-day operating costs and help out on projects and stuff, so if people want to check that out on our Facebook page, there’s links to that as well.”

Feel free to contact us with questions and/or comments.