Photo courtesy of Tom Corey Images
12/28/19 Coon Bluff Lower Salt River Cleanup
We teamed up with our friends at OdySea Aquarium for a morning of stewardship and fun at the Lower Salt River for a Coon Bluff Recreation Area Cleanup on Saturday, December 28, 2019. Thank you to 194 volunteers, including 57 youth volunteers, for Opting Outside and leaving a positive impact on the Lower Salt River. Together, we removed 4,314 pounds of trash, that’s 2.16 tons of trash no longer littering the river. Thank you to all of the volunteers who helped us make a significant impact!
One of the reasons we removed so much trash from this area is because in September of 2019, the Steward Mountain Dam released water at 40,000 cubic feet per second into the Lower Salt River. The water rose to 18 feet in some places, flushing out all of the long buried trash from the river bed and weaving it into the vegetation.
We would like to thank the following organizations for their support of this event: American Rivers, Battle Born Offroad, CopperPoint Insurance Companies, Desert Monsters Tours, Garland Signs & Specialties, Icon Vehicle Dynamics, Illuminated Funds Group, LeBaron & Carroll Insurance, Manatee Bags, OdySea Aquarium Foundation, ON Semiconductor, REI, Salt River Project, Sierra Expeditions, Southwest Airlines, Tru Flask, the U.S. Forest Service - Tonto National Forest - Mesa Ranger District, and Yamaha Outdoor Access Initiative.
Check out all of the photo galleries below. Pictures from the raffle are also below.
Before Photos - click a photo to bring up full size gallery
Photos courtesy of Tom Corey Images - click a photo to view full size image
Photos from Justin & Nicole Corey
Additional Photos shared with permission from volunteers
We would like to thank everyone at LeBaron & Carroll Insurance in Mesa for donating 130 new trash grabbers to our program. THIS DONATION WILL HAVE A HUGE IMPACT ON OUR VOLUNTEER EVENTS GOING FORWARD. They also donated a cooler to our volunteer raffle!
Raffle Winners!
Huge thanks to LeBaron & Carroll Insurance for donating a 75 quart cooler. Thank you to OdySea aquarium for donating 6 tickets to the aquarium, 2 tickets to Shark Behind the scenes, 2 tickets to Titanic, 2 tickets to Butterfly Wonderland, 2 tickets to Penguin Program, 2 tickets to Sea TREK, 1 framed art piece, & 2 canvas art pieces. Thank you to Tru Flask for donating tru flask bottles & tumblers. And thank you to Manatee Bags for donating 2 packs of their reusable produce bags.
We know volunteers don’t attend our events for prizes, but it’s a nice way to help show them how much local organizations and the community appreciates their hard work.
Thank you to everyone at Southwest Airlines in Phoenix for donating snacks to our volunteers!