As cooler fall days are upon us, Fox-Wolf’s Trash Free Waters program is wrapping up volunteer cleanup efforts for the season. The 2022 season kept the program busy! Our annual Fox-Wolf Watershed Cleanup event was our largest to date with 1,617 volunteers cleaning up 8,439 pounds of trash. Following the watershed cleanup event, Trash Free Waters hosted five mini cleanup events at sites in the Fox-Wolf River basin over the summer and early fall. These mini cleanups have resulted in 104 volunteers cleaning up an additional 288 pounds of trash from our waterways.

The first mini cleanup took place on Thursday, June 23rd. Volunteers from State Farm Insurance in Neenah started the morning off with volunteers cleaning up at Herb & Dolly Smith Park in where the Neenah Channel meets the Fox River. In the afternoon, another group of volunteers cleaned up the Menasha Locks site at the end of Broad Street. In total, both groups removed a total 0f 26 pounds of trash consisting of mostly signage, cigarette butts, fishing containers, and food waste.

On Wednesday, July 27th, we led a group of eight volunteers from Christ the Rock church in Menasha on a Cleanup adventure in downtown Appleton. Volunteers split into two groups heading off in different directions cleaning up 10 bags of trash weighing at 51 pounds of trash.

September was our busiest month for coordinating mini cleanups. Fourteen volunteers from Plexus Corp cleaned up four sites along the Fox River in Neenah on Tuesday, September 13th. The group cleaned up 40 pounds of trash.

The very next day, on September 14th, staff from Fox-Wolf’s Trash Free Waters and Winnebago Waterways worked with volunteers from Communities at Oshkosh North for their 9/11 Day of Service efforts. The students worked in two teams, one for cleanup at Asylum Park, and the other conducted water quality monitoring. Students were collecting benthic macroinvertebrates (bugs) which are biological indicators of water quality. Some species are more sensitive to pollutants than others, so we can estimate water quality based on which bugs we find. Students also collected data like water temperature, pH, and water clarity in support ​of Fox-Wolf Watershed Alliance’s Winnebago Waterways Water Quality Monitoring Program. The data is used to track the progress of project efforts and inform areas in need of improvement.

The site kept students busy with plenty of trash for students to clean up. In total, volunteers cleaned up 126 pounds of litter and debris.
Our latest mini cleanup event took place on Saturday, September 24th at 1000 Islands Environmental Center in Kaukauna. This cleanup was an activity coordinated for 1000 Island’s Focus on the Fox event. Our 15 cleanup volunteers removed 41 pounds of trash, and we were able to recycle all of the cans and glass bottles that volunteers cleaned up.
Fox-Wolf believes that the water resources of the Fox and Wolf River Basin are essential to the ecological and economic integrity of the region and the foundation of its quality of life. Participating in watershed cleanups is one way that citizens can do their part for the water resources we all depend on.

In total, Trash Free Waters has coordinated 1,721 cleanup volunteers in 2022, cleaning up 8,717 pounds (over 4 tons) of trash from our lakes, rivers and surround landscape.

Save-the-Date for the 2023 Fox-Wolf Watershed Cleanup, Saturday, May 6, 2023.

To learn more about our Fox-Wolf’s Trash Free Waters program, visit: www.trashfreewaters.org
Questions? Contact Kelly Reyer at 920-915-1502 or kelly@fwwa.org.