ACAP’s March Creek Cleanup 2008

Today, I attended ACAP’s March Creek Cleanup with Stephen Chase. The event was sponsored by Canaport LNG.

While the weather wasn’t the nicest, the turnout was more then the organizers expected! I think that says a lot about our community. Freezing weather along with the chance of rain won’t keep people from making Saint John a better place to live!

I was on team 8, and we cleaned the area behind Michael’s to Rothesay Avenue. I was pretty suprised by the amount of garbage and trash that ends up in the waterways around the malls.

One interesting thing that we did discover was the remains of a copper stripping operation. It looked like the wire was stripped for the copper, and the insulation was left in a pile not far from Rothesay Avenue.

Anther discovery was a groundhog living nearby this mess. We found several deep holes, then we found him sticking his head out of another hole near the water. Just goes to show the wildlife that lives right beside our malls!

I do feel bad for the groundhog though, The water was really gross. It was reddish colored, and it smelled pretty bad.

After the cleanup, we headed back behind Parkwall mall where we were able to see the amount of garbage picked up by each team. It blew me away to see so many rusting shopping carts that were picked up.

The strangest thing that I found was several backpacks containing crushed beer cans near an empty bottle of Colt 45. As strange as that may be, that is nothing compared to the winner of the “strangest item” contest. Someone actually found a bong. How stange of a thing to end up in Marsh Creek!

It was definitely a successful event, and I would be interested in participating again next year!