09/16/2012 - Dog River AFTER the Coastal Cleanup

Header Image. This 2012 Coastal Cleanup in Dog River was yet another example of how annual Clean Up events are incapable of keeping waterways clean. They can't even make a dent in the trash removal.

This new T-Shirt says it all. You get what you tolerate.

Yesterday was the annual Coastal Cleanup. All these photos are taken a day AFTER the cleanup within 1-2 miles of Dog River Park.

Lazy ass fisherman littered Dog River Park in less than 24 hours. Note the worm containers. Solution: New Park Rule - no fishing if there is litter on the ground whether you put it there or not. Get caught fishing with litter nearby on the ground, get charged a $425 fine for littering.

Despite expectations that Dog River residents would clean up their own properties, some did nothing and the litter remains. Volunteers can't just go walking around on private property.

Come kayaking in Dog River where you can get your weed and coffee in the same container.

People pay extra when buying tires and that extra money goes toward removing tires from the environment. Unfortunately, that tax must be a scam because getting rid of tires is almost impossible. Tires line storm water ditches, block storm water pipes, and are filling creek beds. Shame on the people throwing tires out of their car windows and littering the environment.

To a power boater looking at the shoreline of an undeveloped property, from a distance all appears well.

Swapping places, now on the shoreline looking toward Dog River - same place. Yuck! Most undeveloped property shorelines in the trash tidal zone look like this. This is one year's worth of trash because I removed all the trash from here last year.

Why do I constantly bitch about no one removing the pollution along the shorelines? People aren't the only one who use the water and undeveloped shorelines. 

Our drinking water is filtered. Their drinking water is not. If you don't think animals and insects are important, wait until all the bees are dead because of polluted water.

Mosquito bites have been making news due to the diseases they carry. If shoreline litter was removed regularly there would be less mosquitoes because containers full of water like this would be removed.

You would think the coastal cleanup would target Television sets since the cathode ray tubes are hazardous to the environment. You would think environmental groups would have someone to call to get hazards like this removed from the water. And to think, KMB and others want to put radio transmitters on trash and throw it in the water to track where it goes. 

Come kayaking with me, I'll show you where the trash ends up - in the tidal zone traps. Why waste money tracking trash? Use the money to remove it. Document what is removed from where and you will have much better insight into what kind of trash is going where.

Kind of hard to miss seeing this tire. I saw about a hundred tires on today's paddle.

These photos were taken less than one mile away from the Alabama Department of Environmental Management's office. ADEM says piles of litter are not illegal dumps. Well, someone should clean up Dog River and pile all the litter up in ADEM's parking lot. It wouldn't be illegal dumping and ADEM tolerates Mobile doing nothing about shorelines that look like this. Just kidding, don't dump on ADEM. They apparently are sleeping, so don't wake them up.

Scenes like this are sure to bring in the eco-tourists. Hahaha. Actually, I have kayaking friends who absolutely won't put their kayak in Dog River due to trash and raw sewage.

Beautiful homes, trashy shorelines. Lower property values. Someone should sue the City of Mobile. Still ZERO litter traps. Still ZERO people employed to remove Mobile's trash. Most of the trash still there despite another Clean Up.

If 400 volunteers worked 4 hours (assuming they actually worked the full four hours) cleaning the shoreline of Dog River, that would be 1600 worker hours. Those 400 people would accomplish LESS than what one person working full time could do. Why the City of Mobile employs no one removing trash from waterways full is mind boggling.

The trash in these photos will not rot for another 364 days...until the next Dog River Cleanup does not remove it. Plastic does not biodegrade.