Partners for Clean Streams and Lucas Soil & Water District invite you to join us on the Sandpiper for a water quality boat cruise down the Maumee River, on August 6th, from 1:00 to 3:00pm. Experience the Mighty Maumee from inside a boat and witness the importance it has for our city and region. Also on board will be several experts to answer questions about water quality, wildlife, and how we can continue to improve the Maumee River. Registration is required and there is a $5 fee. For more information or to register, contact Partners for Clean Streams or go online. The Maumee Area of Concern Advisory Committee (MAAC) is sponsoring this program. Share the program's flyer with your networks! 

Vote for clean streams! We need your help, and not in the get down and dirty, typical Clean Your Streams kind of way. We have been nominated for the PIG Difference Grant Program and need your votes to be awarded funds to support our stream cleanup programs. The more votes we get, the more funding we receive. New Pig Corporation created the PIG Difference grant program. Each year, they award approximately $25,000 to various projects that catalyze their mission, which is to directly fund local, grassroots projects that restore conserve, and protect five of America’s most important habitats: rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds; swamps and wetlands; wet forests; estuaries; aquifers.

We chose to seek funding for our stream cleanup projects, including Clean Your Streams Day and Clean Your Streams 365. You can read our full grant proposal on the PIG Difference website. This year marks the 20th Annual Clean Your Streams Day and we are halfway to our goal of fundraising $20,000 needed to support this program each year. Your vote can help us get that much closer! The voting period remains open until August 20. You can vote once per 24 hours, per device (no log-in or email address required). Please share with friends, family, colleagues, and anyone else you know that depends on our water resource here in northwest Ohio, which should be everyone you know. You can help us spread the word by sharing our Twitter and Facebook posts about voting with your social media networks! We at Partners for Clean Streams thank you in advance for your votes and hope to see you at this year’s Clean Your Streams Day. Vote at www.PIGDifference.org/votenow. 

Last year’s Clean Your Streams Day included 971 volunteers who collected 13,528 pounds of trash over 33.9 miles of river bank. During the cleanup, volunteers diligently tracked the types of trash that they collected. With this information Partners for Clean Streams is better able to educate people and focus future cleanup efforts. The top ten items found in Lucas County demonstrate that a significant amount of trash found during cleanups comes from one-time use products like food wrappers, cigarette butts, plastic bottles, plastic bags, disposable cups and plates, and beverage cans. By recycling or reducing usage of these types of products, we can all have a big impact on our waterways. We encourage you to take advantage of reusable products as much as possible. Reusable water bottles and grocery bags are a great start. Repackaging food bought in bulk is another means for saving money and helping reduce waste. To get more information on how to reduce plastic waste, explore NOAA’s Marine Debris program.

During Clean Your Streams Day, volunteers find many other unique items that tell a different story about marine debris. Unique and strange items found in 2015 included spray paint cans, a power drill, coconuts, a table, a wheel barrel, a wooden train whistle, a toaster oven, a bible, 97 baseballs, a wig, and 10 shopping carts. It is important to find appropriate ways of disposing items such as these. Many municipalities and cities hold special trash days where citizens can dispose of large amounts of trash before they reach our waterways. Look into proper ways of recycling electronics, yard waste, and household hazardous wastes through your local government. Lucas County provides a number of opportunities for trash disposal, with more information on their website. In the near future, look for a new edition to our Clean Your Streams page on our website, focusing on marine debris prevention and reducing our impact on waterways.