August 13 Lower Platte Cleanup
Lois Goldstein | Published on 8/13/2021
Photos by John
We had originally scheduled a Pine River cleanup for today, but this week's storms made it dangerous and impractical to do that trip today. Instead, we headed to the Lower Platte, which the TAPC has been cleaning for over 15 years.
Lois picked up a very old Gatorade bottle that was already encrusted with zebra mussels.
Marlo (a rising sophomore at Rice University) not only nabbed this can, but also dove down to retrieve other ones later in the day.
When Marlo first spotted this, she thought it might be a poker chip, but it turned out to be a cell phone case - which she thinks will fit her sister's phone.
We met this young lady (Lauren) early in the day; she was willing to dive down to get a few items for us. Then she noticed that her rental paddleboard seemed to be leaking. We had emergency duct tape, so we returned the favor and patched the board. The woman in the background had capsized while trying to grab a pair of kids' sunglasses. Fortunately, her little dog was wearing a PFD.
By the end, we had picked up quite a load of non-native debris. Everyone celebrated with ice cream afterwards. Pictured: Marlo, George, Lois, Sharon, Mitch and John
