For the past two years, a small but enthusiastic group of Westport residents have come together to help remove hundreds of pounds of post-Fourth debris from the shoreline along Half Moon Bay, Westhaven State Park, and south along the beach to the Grays Harbor Lighthouse. This year’s clean up crew included local volunteers Brady Engvall, Heidi Happonen, Arthur Grunbaum, Kaare Hammer and Kathy Greer. With trash bags and disposal courtesy of Washington State Parks the group met up on the morning of July 5 at Westhaven State Park and spent over two hours sweeping both Halfmoon Bay and the south Jetty beaches of nearly 500 pounds of trash. A majority was spent fireworks but then there was also plenty of aluminum cans, plastic and glass bottles, and food containers found near smoldering bon fires or along the high tide line or in the dunes. Halfmoon Bay is always the hardest hit, more than likely due to its easy access by car and the fact that it lies just outside Park boundaries, where fireworks are prohibited. In addition to the Westport fireworks cleanup effort there was word of dozens of dedicated Grayland residents who took on areas further south where the impact exceeds that of Westport’s due in large part again to vehicle accessibility and in this case to over 15 more miles of beach gathering spots.
Also in it’s third year Washington State Parks and Coastsavers sponsored a beach up last Saturday at the Twin Harbors State Park beach approach at Schaeffer Road to continue the debris cleanup effort following the Fourth. The event drew nearly 100 volunteers from all over Grays Harbor and included one Boy Scout troop, conservation group representatives, a local church, and numerous Ocean Gold employees including Heidi Happonen the company’s Public Relations representative. Folks arrived bright and early to disburse north and south along our south beaches. Ocean Gold also helped sponsor the clean up with a great barbecue and provided outreach materials for youth volunteers. Ms. Happonen spoke about what a great opportunity the clean up offered the company to connect with the community in terms of improving awareness about keeping the ocean clean. “It would be great to expand this effort next year to cover more of the Grays Harbor coastline and to try and collaborate with more local interest groups and residents on clean ups throughout the year.” In all over 10 cubic yards of debris was collected including fireworks, rope, beverage bottles, and plastic containers.
Volunteers this year discussed the hope that by next year a much larger combined effort should be organized to cover all of the South Beach from Westport to the county line and to have more emphasis on the days surrounding the Fourth. A great model for a larger scale community clean up effort is Pacific County’s Grass Roots Garbage Gang, which since 2001 has been holding three clean ups a year including their one on July 5 which in years passed continues to draw over 500 volunteers and remove over 18 tons of trash in one day!
To learn about more about getting involved in future beach clean ups or organizing one yourself visit http://www.coastsavers.org or email kgreer@surfrider.org.
