This morning I had to go out on an unexpected errand, so naturally I grabbed my camera and stopped by Huntington's Harris Riverfront Park for a few minutes.
First, I was surprised by the amount of wood drift and human trash in the river. I probably shouldn't have been, considering all the rain we've had this week. A lot of stuff comes out of the tributaries, and the Guyandotte has had a pretty strong current where it meets the Ohio at Huntington.
A couple of swan geese, several Canada geese and a lot of ducks swam among the debris while the mv. Barbara came downbound pushing 15 loads of coal.
The wake washed up on the HRP boat launch ramp.
And the Barbara passed under the 6th Street Bridge.
Meanwhile, setup proceeded for the Huntington Symphony Orchestra's concert by the Ohio River tonight.
And we stopped to enjoy some of the flowers planted and tended to by a volunteer group.
A typical morning at the park, I guess.
2 comments:
All of the trash makes me really sad. I don't really like to look at pictures of it, but...when I see them, it makes me wonder about people. About how it could be so hard to just put garbage in a can, and have pick up (or at least make a trip to a LEGAL dump every few weeks or something).
When we go to Va. Point, that's something that always aggravates me--all the trash, even when it hasn't flooded. Piles of trash from people fishing or whatever it is they do that requires little piles of trash. Take a Walmart bag with you, or something! There are garbage cans everywhere. (And what REALLY irks me is when there is a Walmart bag stuffed IN the little pile of trash! Not too lazy to go to Walmart, but too lazy to put your trash in the bag and carry it to a can? Bah.)
I just don't get people. The river is so beautiful. We make it so ugly sometimes. That's hard for me to grasp. Obviously, at times it is the very people enjoying the river leaving the most trash behind. That's just...pathetic.
As you know I live right beside Davis Creek here in Cabell County. It never ceases to amaze me how much garbage comes down the creek every time it rains.
We have had a goodly number of high water occasions on the creek this year. Yet each time we have another, I can stand in my shed an watch even more garbage flow past. You would think that if the last washout was higher than the current high water, that all the trash would have been swept away before. Not so, or the garbage people are dropping more onto the creek banks daily. And the latter is the exact cause.
If I drive upstream--and it only about a mile to the top of the hill, I can see all kinds of litter just dumped on the creek bank and in the creek, waiting on the rain. And it does no good to call anyone to complain, they never come out to check (unless they happen to have an axe to grind for someone, then they are johnny-on-the-spot.)
I have just about given up. I used to go down into the creek and pick up the litter, put it in bags and set out for the garbage truck.
But it is so never-ending that I can't see it ever stopping, and I'm getting a little old to pick up other people's trash. But I have developed a method for roadside clean-up. I accept that I'll never stop the fast food debris and the whiskey bottles and the wine bottles and the beer bottles and the aluminum cans and the plastic bottles, ad infinitum. But when I spot a piece of paper with the name and address of a resident on it, I mail it back to them. I have yet to get a response, but you know, those types of things aren't being dropped nearly as much anymore.
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