Written by Gina Pannunzio, Kelly LaForest and Ian Naisbitt for The Egret – Issue 35 – Number 2
On Tuesday, April 2, Essex County Nature was invited by the City of Windsor, the Detroit River Canadian Cleanup and the Essex Region Conservation Authority to participate in a river cleanup in the Little River watershed. Caesar Windsor’s CodeGreen group coordinated the event, which included bringing many supplies and numerous volunteers to the cleanup. Thankfully, Mother Nature cooperated with sunny, mild weather.
About 50 community volunteers cleaned up the section of Little River between Lauzon Road and Tecumseh Road East, adjacent to the Canadian Tire Store. We refer to it as “the Hawthorne site.” This was the 15th time the community has cleaned up the human debris from this site since the autumn of 1996. Volunteers worked from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Along with the CodeGreen group, there were volunteers from the City of Windsor, Detroit River Canadian Cleanup, University of Windsor, Essex County Field Naturalists’ Club and Little River Enhancement Group. This hard-working crew pulled out eight shopping carts (the Hawthorne site is infamous for shopping carts), one lawn chair, a bicycle, a garbage pail, two recycling bins, industrial hoses, two children’s tents, a large pile of wood, a stove pipe baffle, and 55 bags of recyclable and landfill waste. One of the unusual items removed from the river was an aquarium.
We are always pleased to observe local wildlife surviving in the Little River watershed. During this cleanup we noticed a belted kingfisher. A pleasant first-time surprise for us: there were many people kayaking and canoeing this section of Little River, and they were thankful the group was cleaning up the river.
We appreciated the CodeGreen group coordinating this event and look forward to working with them in the future.
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