Hundreds gather to clean Pullman creeks

For the 10th consecutive year, members of the Pullman-Moscow community banded together Saturday morning to keep Palouse trash out of the Pacific Ocean.

About 250 volunteers gathered in Spring Street Park for the Annual Pullman Stream Clean-Up, an event coordinated by the Palouse-Clearwater Environmental Institute (PCEI) with funds from the City of Pullman and other donations from groups and businesses in the area.

“The brooks go into the creeks, and the creeks go into the rivers, and the rivers go into the oceans,” said Benjamin Derrick, a WSU graduate with a master’s in ecosystem management. “There’s not a whole lot of science behind it because you really don’t need a whole lot of science. All you have to do is pick (the trash) up with your hands.”

The PCEI is a non-profit environmental group that encourages sustainable living through education and hands-on service activities. The stream cleanup is one of many ways the group engages communities in local conservation efforts.

Pullman Mayor Glenn Johnson kicked off the event by thanking those who represented the Pullman Civic Trust, the WSU Center for Civic Engagement, and various fraternities and sororities.

“We’re really grateful to especially the groups who come up with maybe 30 or 40 people to bring along with them,” PCEI staff member Carolea Webb said.

Others participated individually, with their families, or with church groups.

“I figured it would be a cool way to get to know the area and meet people,” said Cait McHugh, a Western Washington University graduate with a master’s in environmental education who moved to Pullman about a week and a half prior to the event.

The volunteers were divided into four teams, each of which was designated an animal name like Heron or Otter. Four Pullman Transit buses then carted the volunteers to various destinations along Paradise Creek, which runs parallel to the Pullman-Moscow Highway and converges with the south fork of the Palouse River.

From their respective drop-off points, the teams returned on foot to the meeting area in the park, filling plastic bags courtesy of the Les Schwab Tire Center in Pullman. Recyclables were gathered in repurposed soil bags.

Coordinators provided a large assortment of donated lunch items, from pizza to sub sandwiches, for returning volunteers.

Heather Huston, the environmental outreach coordinator, said Katie Peterson, the lead environmental educator, and Daniel Sidder, the nature center programs coordinator, were instrumental in organizing the event.

“This year I was in charge of doing food donations and a lot of the coordination,” Peterson said. “And I’m really happy how it turned out because we had about 250 people show up, so 50 more than last year.”

Rob Buchert, the program manager of stormwater services for the City of Pullman, explained how the event has grown since Randy Stevens, now the PCEI implementation coordinator, developed the project on a small section of Missouri Flat Creek.

“Each year PCEI got a few more people and a few more community members, a few more volunteers,” Buchert said. “And it got to a point where it was such a big event that they needed a little extra support to continue it, and that’s where the city stepped in.”

Many PCEI volunteers are members of AmeriCorps, a government agency that aggregates service positions across the country.

The next Paradise Creek cleanup will take place April 26 at the PCEI Nature Center in Moscow.