On the Ground: Volunteers Remove Hundreds of Pounds of Trash from the Manistee River

Kristina Kennedy • July 21, 2022

A young volunteer claims his raffle prize donated by Steelhead Manifesto at the Manistee River Clean-Up on Saturday, July 16, 2022.

On Saturday, July 16, 2022, 52 OTG volunteers gathered in partnership with Steelhead Manifesto at the High Bridge Boat Launch in Brethren to clean-up trash from the Manistee River by boat, kayak, and on foot. Those with boats welcomed others onto the water and worked together to gather trash from Rainbow Bend in Manistee to Tippy Dam in Brethren.

In total, these dedicated volunteers helped pick-up about 300 hundred of pounds of trash including fishing line, camp chairs, t-posts, treated wood, grill parts, and abandoned buoys. They hauled all of this waste back to the High Bridge Boat Launch where it was properly disposed of by the US Forest Service. By removing trash from the river and surrounding public land, volunteers improved over 15 river miles of fish and wildlife habitat. They also helped make the river safer for anglers and other river recreationists!

We greatly appreciate all of the hard work that volunteers put in to improve the aquatic ecosystem of the Manistee River this past weekend. Make sure to join us again next year in cleaning-up the Manistee!

Our next OTG project will be cleaning-up the Bay Mills Area by removing trash from illegal forested dump sites and cleaning-up the beach along the Whitefish Bay of Lake Superior. Check out the OTG webpage at mucc.org/on-the-ground/ for upcoming events and volunteer registration.

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