Registration now open for SYRCL’s 15th annual Greater Yuba River Cleanup
Rally friends and family to serve your community on September 15, 2012
Nevada City, CA - The South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) announces the 15th annual Greater Yuba Cleanup and Restoration Day on Saturday, September 15, 2012. The event is in conjunction with the 4th annual Great Sierra River Cleanup, a program of the Sierra Nevada Conservancy. This all-day event includes 35 cleanup sites and five restoration projects from 9:00 am – noon, followed by volunteer appreciation festivities at South Yuba River State Park at Bridgeport crossing. In 2011, 643 volunteers—registering as individuals, civic and youth groups, or families—supported SYRCL’s Greater Yuba Cleanup removing more than 13,000 pounds of trash and recycling—be a part of this community-building event and show your appreciation for the Yuba River.
SYRCL has spearheaded fourteen successful years of river cleanups in partnership with the California Coastal Commission’s Cleanup Day, Nevada County and California’s largest volunteer event. SYRCL’s Greater Yuba River Cleanup and Restoration Day has stewarded sites ranging from the high Sierra mountains of Donner Summit to Parks Bar on the Lower Yuba, covering 100 miles of shoreline. With half a million visitors to the South Yuba River each year, enormous amounts of litter are discarded over the summer months. Over the past 14 years, , SYRCL has cumulatively coordinated 6,100 volunteers who have removed 140,000 pounds of trash and recycling, rebuilt trails, and removed invasive species during the three-hour cleanup day each September for the past 14 years in an effort to address recreational impacts.
“We applaud the hundreds of volunteers, business sponsors, and public agencies for their dedicated stewardship of the Yuba watershed,” states River People Coordinator Miriam Limov. “We simply couldn’t clean up the tons of trash each year without all this community support.” According to Caleb Dardick, SYRCL’s Executive Director, “SYRCL’s envisions a day when this Cleanup is obsolete because visitors have a strong ethic to keep the watershed clean, safe, and healthy.”
For the past 3 years, one third of our volunteers have been 18 years of age and under. Therefore, Scout troops, youth groups, and school groups are encouraged to participate and can register together and work at the same site—as long as they register early. This is a superb family event, too!
This year’s restoration projects involve invasive species removal at the following locations: Bennett Street Meadow in Grass Valley, Edwards Crossing, Oregon Creek, Jones Bar, and Kentucky Ravine at Bridgeport.
In response to reduced services and increasing visitation in our local state parks, SYRCL launched the pilot River Ambassador program this summer focusing on educating and motivating the half a million annual visitors to the Yuba River to have a healthy, and sustainable river. Talking face-to-face with visitors at 49 and Purdon crossings on the weekends, SYRCL’s River Ambassadors are working to reduce the amount of glass, litter, and dog waste, while also helping curtail fire risks. After six weekends of service, River Ambassadors have volunteered 168 hours, picked up over 1,000 pieces of trash and dog waste, and educated 1,350 Yuba River visitors.
Even with the Ambassadors hard at work all summer, trash is still carelessly left behind. It needs to be removed from the banks and the water before the fall rains wash the refuse downstream toward the ocean. The River Cleanup is our effort to do just that.
River Celebration! Following the morning cleanup effort is a free barbeque lunch and river celebration for participating cleanup volunteers at South Yuba River State Park at the Bridgeport crossing on the South Yuba River. The celebration also includes a volunteer awards ceremony, a recycled trash fashion show by the non-profit educational group, Haute Trash, along with the 2nd annual Stone Skipping Competition.
The buffet lunch is provided courtesy of the following generous donors: Broad Street Bistro, California Organics, Emily’s Catering and Cakes, Four Frog Farm, Flour Garden Bakery, Indian Springs Organic Farm, Living Lands Agrarian Network, Mountain Bounty Farm, Nevada County Free Range Beef, Riverhill Farm, Soil Sisters Farm, Starbright Acres Family Farm, and Summer Thyme’s Café.
This event is made possible thanks these generous sponsors: Sugar Bowl Resort, Nevada City Self Storage, PG & E, KVMR, YubaNet, The Union, California State Parks, Sierra Nevada Conservancy, BriarPatch Co-op Market, A-One Bookkeeping, Grass Valley Signs, B&C True Value Hardware, Volz Bros., Soil Sisters, Fire Safe Council, Walkers Office Supplies, South Yuba Club, Daggett Designs, Hometown Hydroponics, Clientworks, State Farm Insurance, Plaza Tire, Sweetland Garden Supply, and Gold-N-Green.
What: The 15th Annual Greater Yuba Cleanup and Restoration Day Event
Who: The South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL)
When: Saturday, September 15, 2012: 9am – noon for the Cleanup and Restoration projects;
Noon – 3:30pm for the celebration at Bridgeport
Where: 40 sites on the Yuba and Bear Rivers and Wolf and Deer Creeks followed by a
post-cleanup celebration at the South Yuba River State Park at the Bridgeport crossing.
More Information: www.yubariver.org or contact River People Coordinator, Miriam Limov at
miriam@syrcl.org 530-265-5961 X 201
On-Line Registration Required! To sign up for a Cleanup site or for the restoration projects, please visit our website at www.yubariver.org to register. Register early to make sure that you have the opportunity to cleanup at your favorite site!
The South Yuba River Citizens League (SYRCL) has united the community to protect and restore the Yuba River for almost 30 years.
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