Project Clearwater — Expedition Two

This time we had four people out on the water for what was originally supposed to be a clearing operation. The water was higher than normal and flowing a bit, so it was an easy ride down to Blockage #7. Upon arrival, however, the plan changed a bit, as all the litter that had been upstream last time (with the water flowing ever so slightly that direction) had been collected by the current and was now waiting back at #7.

Frankly, it looked almost as bad as when we were just there, but it really wasn’t quite as bad as it appeared. Most of the litter was surface litter, with much less layering than last time. Still, it was quite a bit, so we turned the day into a hybrid litter-picking and logjam-clearing project. It worked out quite well, although both aspects took longer and more effort than anticipated.

By the time we called it a day, the downstream-left side of the jam had been cleared to a nice wide path, and a good pile of bags was collected to paddle back out. We didn’t get everything, however. While we were successful in extracting almost all of the Anaconda, we did not have the space to carry it back to the extraction point. (The Anaconda is a *huge* length of wide 8-mil LDPE plastic that was wound around some tree trunks and was the actual cause of a large portion of the logjam.) We had to leave it behind for the time being, but we’re planning to return with the Canoemaran to remove it for measurement and disposal.

We were wrapping up and leaving the park around 5pm, having arrived just a bit before 8am, and at least a couple of us were *quite* worn out from shifting all that wood. In the end, we didn’t even get any notable precipition. It was a long, hard day, but as the photo above shows, Blockage #7 is now quite easily passable, so on with the show.