Arnold Residents Braved Saturday's Cold to Clean the Meramec River

A group of dedicated Arnold citizens milled around Arnold City Park Saturday at 7:30 a.m. It was raining and cold, but spirits were high as they prepared for the day's activity. 

The Arnold Stream Team was preparing to remove litter and waste from the river. The team traveled to the section of Little Muddy Stream that meets Big Muddy Stream and becomes the Meramec River. 

The banks of the Meramec are littered with tires, ones that Stream Team leader Brian Waldrop estimates date as far back as the 1970s. Waldrop and other team members have been at the river every night during the past week removing as many tires as they their truck beds can haul out.

“The litter doesn’t belong here, and the tires we are picking up here, there are no old ones. Back in the day, it was acceptable to put tires and stuff into the ditches along the river for ‘erosion control’, but they don’t belong here,” Waldrop said.

This is the 20th anniversary of Stream Team 2011’s Winter Time Clean Up. Each year, the team goes down to the Meramec River shores and picks up trash and litter that has washed up due to flooding or dumping. The team started in 1991 and continues today.

“We were an OK team then, but now we have expanded and are trying to be the best team in Missouri,” said Waldrop, the team's co-leader.

It’s a hard day’s work. The roads and trails were muddy from the previous night's rain. Still, getting dirty is a mild concern for the team.

“It’s critical to save the environment any way we can, to keep the world better for kids,” Lesa Urban said. Urban has clocked 108 hours of service with the stream team in the past year.

“It’s everyone’s responsibility to keep our watersheds clean for future generations. We’ve been given a great gift here in Missouri of beautiful rivers and streams and beautiful and natural areas, and we need to keep them clean,” said Suzy Higgins of the Department of Natural Resources. Higgens also attended Saturday's cleanup.

There are more than 4,350 stream teams in Missouri. These teams clean Missouri’s waterways for Mother Nature and for the benefit of the surrounding cities. For Arnold, the grounds surrounding the Meramec could have an economy-boosting effect.

“I don’t think citizens realize how much of this land we could be use for multipurposing. It could be used for camp grounds and bring a lot of business into the area,” said Ward 1 Councilwoman Christine "Cricky" Lang.

Volunteers came from as far as Fenton and DeSoto to help on Saturday morning. They belong to other stream teams, but came to support and lighten the load. 

“They’re at our cleanups, and we’ll be at their cleanups because the stream team is like a big family. We have a big rivalry in between teams, but we’re all one big family. So when it comes time to do a clean up they’re here helping us knock out the stuff,” said Waldrop.

So what does Waldrop see for the future of Missouri’s Stream Teams?

“It would be nice to throw a cleanup event and not have to clean up,” he said.

Go to www.mostreamteam.org to join a clean stream team or to create a new team.

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