WEVER – Around 140 paddlers made their way the Skunk River over the course of a week. Project AWARE (A Watershed Awareness River Expedition), is a canoeing and educational event where participants paddle down a different river in Iowa every summer, removing trash along the way. The group started at Lake Darling State Park on July 7, and traveled around 75 miles to end at the Upper Skunk River Access near Wever.
Liz Maas is a member of the N-Compass advisory committee that is the nonprofit organization that hosts the Project AWARE event annually. She’s participated for 10 years. This has been a “low trash” week, she said.
That’s not because the river isn’t trashy, but it’s because the water has been so high. It would have been a challenge no matter what river because all the waters are high right now. “And once you’ve planned for a whole year to have an event, a week-long, you can’t just be like ‘ok we’ll do it next week,’” she said.
“We are kind of married to our dates and you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit and you make lemonade out of lemons kind of deal. And I think we’ve done that really well this week.” The higher the river, the more water obscures trash that has sunk to the bottom or is buried in the banks.
“When the waters are high you just can’t see it,” she said. Typically, though, a lot of trash is reclaimed from the rivers. There’s usually a lot of metal and tires.
“We’re only at about 35 tires. Normally by.