Cleaning up the mess that’s left behind

Equipped with gloves and trash bags, nearly 500 students from six local schools worked their way along the banks of the Kenai River on Wednesday, combing for litter during the 10th Annual Kenai River Spring Cleanup.

The event was hosted by the Kenai River Sportfishing Association, in collaboration with a slew of other local groups including the Kenai River Professional Guide Association, Alaska State Parks, Kenai Peninsula Borough School District and Soldotna Parks and Recreation.

The Kenai River sees more fishers than any other freshwater fishery in the state, KRSA Executive Director Shannon Martin said Wednesday. It’s important, each year, to clean up the mess that’s left behind.

“It’s our job — we live here — to help take care of the environment,” she said. “So that the salmon have a healthy habitat to come back to every year.”

Martin compared the annual event to springtime weeding — readying the river for another summer. Getting students involved, she said, instills an important sense of stewardship for their environment.

On Wednesday, students from Sterling Elementary, Mountain View Elementary, Redoubt Elementary, K-Beach Elementary and Kaleidoscope School of Arts and Science were at seven different river access points — from Centennial Campground upstream to Bing’s Landing.

Sterling Elementary students McKayla Jicha, Hunter Young and Jameson Angaiak picked up fishing line, pieces of wood and other detritus from the bank of the river near Bing’s Landing.

Angaiak said it was important to clean the riverbank to prevent garbage from harming wildlife.

Jicha said that, at high tides, the fish can run into trash like leftover fishing line and be harmed by it.

Young said that he and his classmates were “making the environment better.”

Each of the three students said fishing line was what they’d encountered the most of, though some of the students’ bags had large chunks of metal, coffee cups and other items that had been picked up.

Before tallying this year’s haul, per information provided by KRSA, nearly 19,000 pounds of trash had been removed from the riverbank through the annual event.

For more information, find “Kenai River Sportfishing Association” on Facebook.

Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.