The clean up teams are organized, Local 480 Steelworkers have been honing their barbecuing skills all summer, and the Teck and City of Trail crews will have trucks on hand ready to haul. It’s the end of September and that means that this Sunday is Rivers Day in Trail.
In its first-time run with the city taking over the organization of the event the centre of operations has been moved to Jubilee Park in downtown Trail where teams and individuals will meet at 9 a.m. to be assigned areas to cover for the annual river bank clean up and gather afterwards for a free hotdog lunch and prize draws.
“We have some amazing major sponsors for the shoreline cleanup this year, Columbia Power, Columbia Basin Trust, Teck, BC Hydro, and Kiwanis,” said Andrea Jolly, communications and events coordinator for the city. “All sponsors will either be sending a team or a representative to take part and volunteers from the Air Cadets and the Skills Centre, who previously organized the event will be there as well.”
The organizers have an aerial map of the shoreline and have specific areas they hope to target for clean-up. Volunteers will be assigned areas based on the size of their teams and access to transportation to get to the locations.
City of Trail and Teck trucks will be circulating to pick up garbage collected throughout the event.
In previous years the 44th Field Engineers had been on hand to tackle old vehicles and appliances that had been dumped over the river bank in the past but won’t be involved on Sunday.
“The 44th Field Engineers were not available to help us this year on Rivers Day but we hope to work with them in the near future to pull some of the larger items out of the river or from the shoreline,” said Jolly. “We’ve already received some tips that there are some larger items that need to be cleaned up along the shoreline near Casino.”
Volunteers are advised to wear durable footwear and will be provided with garbage bags and disposable gloves.
For more information on the shoreline cleanup contact Andrea Jolly at (250) 364-0834 or by email at ajolly@trail.ca.