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River Day 2004
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River Day drew
volunteers of all sizes. Here two participants pick garlic mustard,
an invasive species, in the Preserve. |
HNPA member Kathy
Treppa takes time out from River Dayt work activities to help
volunteers learn to identify some of the plants in the Preserve.
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For River Day2004,
better known as Rouge Rescue, the City
of Westland and HNPA returned to the Cowan/Central City entrance of the
Preserve to hack down invasive honeysuckle, pull garlic mustard and pick
up trash - much as we did during Rouge Rescue 2003. With the help of many
hardworking volunteers, a giant pile of honeysuckle, 68 bags of garlic
mustard and two shopping carts filled a section of the parking area
within a few short, but sweaty, hours. A few days later, Wayne County
Parks employees hauled away the piles.
It takes a lot of help to make an event such as
River Day run smoothly. Many thanks goes out to team leaders Rose Treppa
and Phil “Chainsaw” Crookshank; the City of Westland and its supporters
who provided ice, bottle water and pop for the thirsty workers; Westland
Civitans who helped with registration; Boy Scouts; students from Michigan
Chinese School and from Schoolcraft College; employees from Collins &
Aikman; Garden City Youth Assistance Program; Westland Councilperson
Cheryl Graunstadt; Wayne County Parks and the many other volunteers who
took part. Our sincere thanks to everyone who took part. The entrance
looks much more inviting, and you can better see the crabapple trees a
group planted during an earlier River Day.
There was an added feature to the event. A school
of smallmouth bass was found in an isolated pool in Morgan Creek.
Volunteers rescued 100 of the fish, which were transported and released
at the pond behind the nearby Meijer and in Friendship Lake in Westland’s
Central City Park, where they have a much better chance of survival.
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Their work done,
some of the volunteers gathered for a photo.