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Ellen Belcher is the Dayton Daily News opinion pages editor. She writes about state government, education, the environment, higher education and all things Dayton.
Martin Gottlieb is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He focuses on the political process itself and does such national issues as war, the economy, taxes and Social Security, as well as a hodge-podge of local and state issues.
Scott Elliott is an editorial writer and columnist for the Dayton Daily News opinion pages. He writes about education, city and suburban issues, politics, business, workforce and consumer issues.Home > Blogs > A Matter of Opinion > Archives > 2010 > July > 15 > Entry
Editorial: Great Miami cleanup helps bigger effort
In the seven years Piqua’s Jeff Lang has been helping organize cleanups along the Great Miami River, he has seen all kinds of things pulled out of the water. There was, for instance, a twisted ball of coat hangers numbering in the thousands and a safe (minus the contents) that had been stolen from Sinclair Community College.
Today and Saturday, July 17, hundreds of volunteers will be walking along, or canoeing on, the Great Miami River cleaning up after those who dumped their tires or refrigerators or who left their trash after fishing. The effort has been known as operation Clean Sweep since 2004 when the Miami Conservancy District encouraged groups involved in isolated cleanups to come together.
This year the campaign has drawn so many volunteers that “section leaders” have filled all the spots in the canoes they’ve reserved for the event, and they expect to have enough people to walk the local riverbanks in their entirety.
During the two days, 150 canoes will be hauling trash and maybe as many as 900 volunteers will be grabbing plastic bags out of trees and picking up soda and beer cans. Last year 20 tons of junk was hauled away.
The marvel is that between a cleanup effort in May in Butler and Hamilton counties, this event and another one next weekend in Logan County, a 150-mile stretch of the Great Miami will be cleaned up. When the volunteers are done, they’ll all be dirty, sweaty, bug-bitten and probably wet. Then many of them will do it all again next year.
This event, like so many volunteer initiatives, has a core group that never seems to get tired of the ongoing leg work that goes into leveraging and multiplying their own passion.
Their cleanup initiative is becoming more, not less, important. For a host of riverfront communities, the Great Miami River is their backyard. Dayton, Miamisburg, Troy and Hamilton, just to name a few cities, are energetically trying to exploit the river and get businesses to locate on the river’s edge.
They also want more kayakers, bicyclists and festival-goers meeting on their riverbanks. If there’s a water heater rusting nearby, that’s hardly inviting.
The regional nature of the cleanup was something of an example for another newer river initiative that’s partly organized, partly organic.
The University of Dayton has for three years now hosted what it has dubbed the River Summit. Some of the same communities participating in Clean Sweep — from Sidney to Fairfield — are getting together annually to learn about each other’s riverfront development projects and to brag about what they’ve achieved since the previous gathering.
The participants have taken to calling their stretch of the river “Ohio’s Great Corridor,” in recognition that, besides the waterway, nearly 100 miles of bike paths have been built near the river.
The competition among the communities to get things going is friendly because, at the end of the day, the more events, businesses, restaurants and bars that locate on the Great Miami, the better it is for them all.
While this process of making things happen keeps bubbling, it’s good to know that so many are making sure that the people who don’t pick up after themselves and who dump in the dark aren’t going to be allowed to destroy something good.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment | Categories: Editorials, Ellen Belcher
Comments
By Max
July 16, 2010 9:18 AM | Link to this
Great idea, great effort. Now, prosecute the dumping offenders.