This Saturday over 35o volunteers begin a week-long project pulling trash out of the Big Sioux River from Sioux Falls to north of Sioux City. They'll load tires, car parts, old scrap metal, chairs, household appliances and other discarded items into canoes as they paddle down the river.
The cleanup is the latest effort from the Iowa Department of Natural Resource’s Project AWARE, which stands for A Watershed Awareness River Expedition. Over the past dozen years, volunteers have cleaned up stretches of waterways across Iowa. Last summer volunteers removed 34 tons of trash and debris from 91 miles of the Des Moines and Boone Rivers. This year is the first time Project AWARE is collaborating with another organization: the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks.
Lynette Siegley is Project AWARE's coordinator and she discussed the upcoming Big Sioux River cleanup on Dakota Midday.
For more information about Project AWARE, click here.