Volunteers upset about river’s trashy treatment

Cleveland Advocate by JASON FOCHTMAN
Updated: 06.22.09

When Monroe Matlock was in grade school, he use to go fishing for catfish in the San Jacinto River near Low Water Bridge.

That changed at age 10 when he found diapers, tires and a washing machine in the river while on a fishing trip.

Matlock, now a senior at Cleveland High School, has not gone back fishing since then.

Matlock and about 20 other volunteers with the Community & Children’s Impact Center removed trash and debris from a one-mile area of the San Jacinto River near CR 388 and Coldspring Road Saturday morning.

“We’re just trying to get the message out to people about how important our rivers are because what we do up here flows into Galveston Bay,” said Amanda Sutters, environmental director for Community & Children’s Impact Center.

Sutters said the people dumping trash in the river has been a problem for some time.

“I lived down the road from this river for eight years, and this was where I would bring my kids to play,” Sutters said. “I would always have to clean the area up before they could play.”

On Saturday, Sutters was hopeful their first river clean-up would be the first of many for the center.

“There might be just a small handful this time, but next time we might have two handfuls,” Sutters said. “We just want to keep building on that because that’s how we’re going to make a bigger impact.”

Brenda Myers, president of the Impact Center, said she is concerned that trash around the river is unhealthy for the children who play in the river.

“I’ve seen a rope swing down where our children are swinging and not two seconds away is the corpse of a dog that’s been laying down there for some time,” Myers said.

“A clean river is a healthy river, and we need to focus on making our community aware of the damage they’re doing when they throw this stuff in the water,” she added.

When the volunteers stepped out of their vehicles, they were greeted with the smell of a decaying dog wrapped in a black trash bag by the side of the road.

“I think I’m going to puke,” Matlock said when he stepped out of the van and onto a plethora of plastic bottles and fast food bags.

“There’s always been people dumping, but it’s never been this bad, Matlock said. “It’s pretty eye-opening.”

Kalvin Doyle, a 14-year-old freshman at Shepherd High School, agreed, saying he was surprised by the way people treat the river.

“I hate it when people treat beautiful places like trash. It’s just wrong,” Doyle said.

During the clean-up, volunteers found everything from beer bottles to a washing machine.

Some of the more interesting discoveries were a slab of marble, a fake Christmas tree and even a toilet.

While he felt good about giving back the community, Matlock said he was unsure the area would be trash-free too long.

“I’m afraid that things are still going to be dumped, but hopefully in the future if we come down here again it’s not this bad.” Matlock said.

Matlock hopes that one day the river will be clean enough for the catfish to come back and finally he could dust off his fishing pole.