By Joanne Bailey-Boorsma
Tires — 22 to be exact — along mental signage and other trash was just some of the items Martha Stout Vermeulen remembers pulling from the Buck Creek during the first clean up.
Now in its fourth year, the Buck Creek Clean Up is an annual event when residents of Grandville, Wyoming, and Kentwood roll up their sleeves — with a few donning waiters — and spend a Saturday morning, Aug. 5, cleaning up a portion of Buck Creek which travels through the three cities as it makes its way to the Grand River.
The event starts at 8 a.m. at Wyoming’s Lemry Park, 4050 Byron Center Ave. SW, with a light breakfast provided by Biggby Coffee, and Marge’s Donut Den, and orientation that includes free t-shirts. Participants will head out in teams to look for trash and other foreign objects along a variety of Buck Creek locations.
“Last year, from the communities of Wyoming and Grandvile we pulled 80 bags of trash,” said Vermeulen, who serves as the president of the Friends of Buck Creek. The Friends of Buck Creek and Schrems Trout Unlimited host the annual clean up.
Buck Creek, which is about 20 miles long starting in Allegan County, is a cold water stream which holds a viable trout population, all of which is rare to find in an urban setting. For that reason, Schrems Trout Unlimited, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Lower Grand River Organization of Watersheds have highlighted Buck Creek as a threatened stream in need of protection. Two years ago, Schrems Trout Unlimited was awarded a $25,000 grant to assess the water quality in the Buck Creek watershed.
“It was warming,” Vermeulen said. “There was just ignorance as to what was going. There was a lot of fertilizers draining into the creek and other pollutants.”
The area focused on through the clean up efforts has improved with Vermeulen noting that there is trout in that portion of the creek where in other sections the water has become too warm for any fish.
But Vermeulen, who comes from an environmentally-conscious family and lives near Buck Creek, said the greater success has been helping people really care about their environment and their resources so much that they help to protect it.
“Recently, there was a Grandville school teacher who has students go to Buck Creek and do some testing and discussions,”Vermeulen said. “They then built a rain garden for the school parking lot.”
Vermeulen added there is all kinds of things people can do throughout the year to help the creek from adding trees to help shade it to construction a rain garden, which helps to absorb rain runoff that may carry pesticides and fertilizers applied to lawns and other plants.
There is also helping to pitch and care for Buck Creek by removing trash and other items that should not be in the creek.
For more information on the Buck Creek Clean Up, visit swmtu.org. For Friends of the Buck Creek, find the group on Facebook or email Vermeulen at erma00@sbcglobal.net. The clean up is from 8 – 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 5, starting at Charles Lemery Park, 4050 Byron Center Ave. SW. For those who volunteer on Saturday, lunch will be provided at Grandville’s Osgood Brewing.
