More volunteers needed for Medea Creek cleanup day

The Cornell Preservation Organization (CPO) is preparing for a creek cleanup day on Sat., Oct. 25, but organizers say more volunteers are needed to remove the trash and debris from Medea Creek and other waterways that flow to the ocean.

The city of Agoura Hills, the Resource Conservation District of the Santa Monica Mountains, the county of Los Angeles and Universal Waste Management Systems are sponsoring the event, said Colleen Holmes, CPO's president.

"Everybody's holding hands here," Holmes said of the cooperative spirit between the agencies and local government. "This is the first time we've gone into Agoura Hills."

Another first is that dumpsters will be placed along Medea Creek near Willow Elementary School off Laro Canyon and Rustling Oaks Drive. A dumpster will also be located off Cornell Road in the unincorporated area of Los Angeles County.

The city of Agoura Hills, the Resource Conservation District and Los Angeles County each donated $500 to pay for the dumpsters. Agoura Hills CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) will participate in the event, as will local Boy Scout and Girl Scout troops.

"We're going to call this the Beauty and the Beast of Medea Creek," Holmes said. Volunteers will be treated to a photographic presentation of local creeks and the Santa Monica Mountains, but will also be shown how the beauty can turn ugly when garbage is dumped in the canyons and creeks.

The morning presentation will provide a little history of CPO's work in restoring local creeks. Holmes said they have been working to get signage delineating the names of each creek.

"Right now, they are only labeled on the freeway bridge marker," Holmes said.

"My vision is to someday have cleanups where we have dumpsters in all the neighborhoods up to Oak Park," Holmes said. She said trash originating in Oak Park and Agoura Hills travels downstream to Malibou Lake, Malibu Creek State Park and down to the ocean.

Volunteers can expect to find all kinds of trash—and sometimes lost or stolen treasures—over the course of the day. Holmes said teens often go to the creek to drink alcohol, smoke marijuana and participate in other illicit drug activity, so volunteers can expect to clean up bottles, paper, cigarette butts and perhaps hypodermic needles.

To prevent injuries, Holmes said, volunteers will be provided with gloves to wear while picking up trash, but if people have long-handled instruments that pick up trash, they should bring them along. Volunteers should also wear waterproof boots, she said.

The cleanup day can also be viewed as a treasure hunt. Last month, Chris Jenkins, a Lobo Canyon resident, participated in his neighborhood's annual canyon and creek cleanup day. He found a purse stuffed with what appeared to be costume jewelry. Jenkins turned the purse into the Lost Hills Sheriff's Station and later found out that the purse was an expensive Louis Vuitton bag and the jewelry inside was estimated to be worth more than $100,000. The purse and jewelry had reportedly been stolen. The owner was identified, and her property was returned.

Holmes also has made an important discovery by the creek. She said that while she was jogging with her husband one day she noticed some trash on the side of road and stopped to pick it up to keep it from ending up in the drainage channel or the creek. "I crawled into the culvert and found a $5,000 check," she said. "It was my neighbor's check. Somebody had gotten into their mailbox."

Another young volunteer counted the number of cigarette butts he picked up during the course of a creek cleanup day, Holmes said, adding that he collected more than 2,000 butts in five hours.

"There are some neat stories associated with cleaning up the creek," Holmes said.

Holmes said CPO is accepting donations of water bottles for volunteers, as well as monetary contributions to help defray costs. Tshirts will be available for purchase at the event, and Roadrunner shuttle service will provide transportation to and from the staging area on the southeast corner of Kanan and Agoura Roads by the pumpkin patch. The event is from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Volunteers should wear sturdy shoes or waterproof boots, hats and sunscreen. Children under the age of 12 must be accompanied by an adult. Lunch will be provided.

For more information, call Holmes at (818) 5979788. Donations can be mailed to the Cornell Preservation Organization at P.O. Box 1875, Agoura Hills, CA 91301.