26th Annual Mulberry River Clean Up Day Has Great Turnout

[Brad Wimberly]

MASSIVE TURNOUT FOR MULBERRY RIVER SPRING CLEAN UP DAY
Around 250 volunteers took part in the 26th Annual Mulberry River Spring Clean Up Day held Saturday March 4th. Turner Bend hosted the event while the highly organized members of the Mulberry River Society ran what all agreed was the smoothest spring clean up day yet. Several members of the Arkansas Canoe Club took part in the effort. Dennis Buccella of the River Valley Chapter of the ACC presented a $500 check to the MRS to be used on the upcoming High Bank river access project. Participants cleaned the shuttle road from Hwy 103 to Fern, a distance of approximately 30 miles. Also volunteers cleaned about 6 miles of Hwy 23 north of Cass. There were so many eager volunteers that workers were dispatched to White Rock Mtn Rd, Fane Creek Rd, Morgan Mtn Rd, and the road up the Little Mulberry with the total mileage of these roads cleaned being about 10. Others cleaned the Mulberry River access points while several floaters took to the water and cleaned up approximately 20 miles of the banks of the Mulberry. On a positive note despite the tremendous effort the trash trailers were not as full at the end of the day as in the past. One large trailer 16' trailer with high sides was filled with bagged trash while another slightly smaller trailer was filled with bed springs, tent poles, barbed wire, trash drums, etc. There were also a dozen tires to haul off. The Mulberry River is certainly cleaner due to the care it gets during the Spring Clean Up Day and a similar effort hosted in the fall by Byrd's Adventure Center. Many thanks to Steve Outlaw and Bud Bond for the excellent lunch served to the hungry crowd, to the U.S. Forest Service for hauling off the trash, and to the many area businesses that supported the effort by providing door prizes.