Schuylkill River: Perkiomen Creek to Riverfront Park (23-Sept-2016)

This was a clean-up I had been wanting to do all summer. It is dedicated to Stephen Kacir a friend and supporter of this project that passed earlier this year. Kacir was an avid birder, herpetological enthusiast, scientist and an all around good person. He was the first person since I started this project to ask me to clean up specific sites. He cared about the parks in his area where he would go bird watching and wanted to see something done about their condition. At the beginning of the year I did make it to Riverfront Park, the one Kacir told me was in the worst shape. Jeffrey Greco and I did a pretty thorough job of cleaning up the park then and I knew by this point in the year it would most likely be just as bad again. I didn't want to do just a small park clean-up though. I looked at some maps and decided to do an eight and a half mile paddle from the last dam on the Perkiomen Creek to Riverfront Park on the Schuylkill River. I hope to make this an annual clean-up in honor of Kacir and in coming years I will be asking for help from others. This time I did not know what to expect and ran it alone. The above photo is where I launched on the Perkiomen Creek. Before I set out I cleaned up around the dam and as you can see from the pile on shore in front of the canoe there was a good amount of trash there. 

As you can see I didn't get far before I had my first large item. It looked like someone had made a fort on the island right below the dam out of this large tarp. Removed it and an assortment of recyclables from the island then started my trip down the Perkiomen Creek. 

With water levels low everywhere I have been lately I didn't know how much walking I would have to do before I made it to the Schuylkill. Luckily there were only a few shallow sections on the Perkiomen and most of the float on the creek was like the above. 

Most of the trash I pulled off of the Perkiomen was found like this. After the dam and the island I did not find all that much on the banks. 

This is where the Perkiomen joins the Schuylkill River. If you click and enlarge the photo you may be able to see the Bald Eagle in flight at the top of the tree line on the right. 

Spotted this TV shell lodged in a strainer. It was really wedged in and at first I wasn't sure I was going to be able to remove it. Right after this I went to get a bottle that was behind some overhanging vines next to the bank. I started to use my paddle to fish the bottle out from the vines and almost immediately I was surrounded by wasps. I received a couple stings and left the area in a hurry. I was not able to retrieve the bottle before I got out of there. I never like leaving trash behind, but this was still the start of the trip and I had enough stings already. 

In previous posts I have shown photos of parasitoid wasps. This is a photo of an unlucky caterpillar that a parasitoid wasp laid eggs inside of. The eggs hatch inside the caterpillar and the larvae eat away at the host. Eventually they emerge from the host and pupate. The white objects on the caterpillar are the pupa.

On my regular river trips with my kayak this car seat would be a piece that I would have to leave behind. With the canoe I was able to load it right up and take it down the river.

Could see this item from a distance, wasn't sure what it was though. Upon closer inspection I still didn't know. It looks like a base to something, anyone have any clue to what it went to or what it held up? 

What a way to paddle. The canoe was starting to fill up and I still had miles to go.

This is one of my favorite photos of the trip. In the background is a Belted Kingfisher flying, on the log is a Cormorant and flying towards the log is a Green Heron. All are common along the river, but hardly ever could I get all three into one frame. 

From this perspective it is hard to imagine being so close to larger cities. In some of the sections I paddled through, the only reminder that there are other people around is the trash found on the river banks. 

This young Common Merganser didn't mind me floating by. Its siblings swam further down the bank, but it stayed on the rock and posed for a photo. 

In the long strait sections of river I wasn't finding too much on the banks. Above is a chunk of foam on the left and a river beer I plucked from the water on the right.

The strainers I came across did have a lot of trash. The problem here was the amount of aquatic vegetation that they had also caught. Some trash items I couldn't reach just because I couldn't paddle through the duckweed and other debris. 

I had been taking the right side of the river, until I got to a somewhat large island. There I took the left channel and found more items caught in strainers and calm water between them. 

I passed below a bridge under construction and it seemed as soon as I did the amount of trash on the riverside greatly increased. The wasn't much of a current past that point and that could be the contributing factor for all that I was finding. 

Getting close to Riverfront Park, this Osprey flew overhead. It looked to be scanning the water for a meal. I didn't get to see it dive, but it came in close for this shot. 

With the canoe nearly full, I didn't know if I should make anymore stops for larger items. Then I noticed this kids basketball hoop and I had to make the stop. After this I definitely couldn't take any larger stuff. 

This Great Blue Heron was surrounded by trash on his perch. I didn't want to disturb him and I don't think I could have paddled through to get to the trash anyhow. There was only one clear channel where it looked like larger boats may have passed through so I took that and had to ignore that trash I saw floating in the duckweed. 

This was a surprise. I can't determine the species from this photo, I can tell it is a type of Map Turtle and one that is not native to Pennsylvania. We do have native Map Turtle species, but in this case there are characteristics of this ones carapace that tell me it is not from PA.  

Not far after the last Map Turtle, I found another basking with a Red-Eared Slider. Again I can't determine the species of this Map Turtle, yet I know it is different from the previous one. 

After passing by a lot of trash in the duckweed I had to try for some. I paddled as hard as I could into it in the direction of the trash. Going through it was like slowly applying breaks to the canoe. I was able to make it to a few items and I couldn't go any further. Had to back paddle out to the open channel. 

Not far from Philadelphia this was not a surprising find. Second eagle of the day, I preferred the first. Once passed the islands of duckweed I collected more smaller items from both sides of the river before bringing the canoe into the launch. 

I was glad to be at the end. I don't think I could have picked up much more and the canoe was getting difficult to paddle.

I do think Stephen Kacir would have been happy with this haul and with all the birds I saw along the trip. After I put all of the non-recyclables next to trash cans furthest from the river I did do a small walk around a portion of the park and collected more trash until my ride arrived. Several park visitors came up to me while I was there and thanked me for the clean-up. I made sure to tell them about Kacir and let them know he is the one that needed to be thanked. This may be my last visit to Riverfront Park this year, I will return though. I understand why Kacir cared about this park. It is a window to the wild right in the middle of a city. 

I would like to give a special thanks to Joe Greco for picking me up at the end of the trip and to Andrew Curtis for letting me borrow a canoe! The help is much appreciated and hopefully the both of you can go along on this trip next year!

You too can help with taking out the trash! If you get out hiking take a grocery bag with you, give it a second use and fill it with trash while you are out! Every bit helps. You can also help contributing to this project here: Help Fund Taking Out the Trash

Like this project? Like it on Facebook: Taking Out the Trash in Eastern PA

Riverfront Park (19-Jan-2016)

Since I started this project I have been asking for requests of places to clean-up. Riverfront park in Norristown has been the only one I have received so far. The park isn't that big and it was packed full of trash. From what I could see there were several reasons for all of the trash. It receives wash-up from the river, from the amount of beer bottles it is a popular place to drink and although there are a lot of trash cans, it looks like they are not maintained well. I was glad I finally was able to get down to this park yesterday and even got some help. Jeff Greco, who helped me last year with a couple of the clean-ups was able to make it for this one as well. It was incredibly cold and the help was much appreciated.

I arrived early so I got to work on collecting the recyclables before Mr. Greco got there. The above is the fist large grouping of trash washed up in a debris pile. The idea was to do a walkthrough for recyclables first then go back on a second pass for the non-recyclables.

There was more than one basketball found in the park, this one was the only one with a neat ring of ice around it. I did pull this out of the river and placed it on the bank to be picked up later. 

Looking upriver on the Schuylkill. The park does offer two boat launches and this small concrete dock. This will make an excellent take out point for river clean-ups this spring and summer. I can't wait!

On the left was a debris line that I was able to pick through and remove the trash without a problem. The right photo shows items stuck in a strainer that I wasn't able to remove. I was able to reach some of them with the tongs, the problem was they were frozen solid in a small ice sheet. I couldn't do anything, but leave them there. On the second pass for non-recyclables I was able to remove the small green propane tank closest to shore, but that was it. 

The upriver side of the park ends in a berm that goes up to an old closed road. The berm was covered in trash and I worked my way up it and picked through the brush taking out everything I could see. This filled my first bag of recyclables and I headed back to the car and picked up another bag. 

After collecting recyclables around the back edge of the parking lot I went back to the rivers edge and worked downriver. More of the same. 

It did not take long to fill the second recyclable bag and I picked up a couple additional items which I took to the trash cans right away. The white item to the right in this photo is a huge chunk of what I call river foam. River foam is just huge chunks of styrofoam that I find on rivers. As I wrapped up this second bag Mr. Greco arrived and we started working on the non-recyclables. 

This is a Ring-Billed Gull. There was a small flock of these there the whole time we were there doing the clean-up. They probably enjoy some of the trash left in the park that contain food items.

Mr. Greco picking the trash out of the debris line I removed the recyclables from earlier. 

Two full bags plus of just trash and we only covered half the park by this point. Jeff wanted me to point out the NO LITTERING sign in this photo. It looks as though the sign is often ignored and I doubt many people have been prosecuted here. 

The non-recyclables from this round were deposited in this can and we returned to my car to pick up another bag. I don't like wasting bags, normally both would have been dumped out into the can in order to reuse the bags. In this case the first bag was dumped and the second was placed on top. This was done to keep all of the contents in the can. I just imagined dumping them out and with the wind, everything just blowing right back out again. 

This Red-Tailed Hawk landed just above my car when we were walking over to grab another bag. It stuck around for a few photos and then flew off.

A Ruby-Crowned Kinglet came and gave us a close look as we started working downriver for the non-recyclables. 

We came close to filling two more bags of non-recyclables by the end. Also, found more recyclables which more than filled my backpack. In total we removed over two bags of recyclables and deposited four bags of just plain old trash in the receptacles on site. 

Ending this post with a very colorful mural on a storage container in the park. From here, Jeff and I headed over to the nearby Norristown Farm Park. 

I will point out that we were not able to clean-up this park completely. We did our best under the frigid conditions and I will be back to work on this park again! 

You too can help with taking out the trash! If you get out hiking take a grocery bag with you, give it a second use and fill it with trash while you are out! Every bit helps. You can also help contributing to this project here: Help Fund Taking Out the Trash