Salt Fork River Cleanup

Salt Fork River Forest Preserve, IL

In a rare Saturday field trip, WaterWorks students and teachers participated in a community service project to beautify the Salt Fork River. Our team was assigned to a ravine on the edge of the preserve where there was a large cache of junk. Settlers in the area in the early to mid 1900's dumped loads of garbage into the ravine in an attempt to stop erosion. Our team filled a dumpster in about 2 hours and only removed a small fraction of the garbage. The trash included an antique washing machine and refrigerator, hundreds of bottles and glass shards, pots, pans, bails of wire, milk cans, buckets, and more. We found everything but the kitchen sink! (we probably just didn't dig deep enough)

(Left) Mr. Jackson sorts through the large trash in the ravine. (Right) A WaterWorks student and his mother collect glass shards.

(Left) Say Cheese!. (Right) Evidence of the cleanup.

The upper part of the ravine was picked clean. In the background lies piles of garbage 5 feet deep that will have to wait for next year.