Trashy Divas clean up the Santa Cruz River

What better time to stage a clean-up of the Santa Cruz river banks and riverbed than after the winter rains are over and before the monsoon season begins in mid-June. The Trashy Divas and another group from the environmental organization Tucson Clean and Beautiful (or maybe they were from the Sonoran Institute) agreed to tackle the debris near the Garden of Gethsemane near downtown for a spring cleaning.

The distance from one end of our clean-up zone to the other was not long — only about 4 blocks out of the 184 mile length of the Santa Cruz river in southern Arizona and northern Mexico.

Above, looking south along the Santa Cruz River bed beneath the Congress Street bridge that spans from downtown Tucson to the Menlo Park neighborhood. The river flows from south to north and eventually–during the monsoon floods– flows into the Gila river, then to the Colorado and finally into the Sea of Cortez. It may take several years of seasonal river floods to carry it along but the throw-away plastic in Tucson could end up in the Pacific. We’re trying to prevent that with these periodic clean ups.

Homelessness is growing in Tucson

Looking downstream. I was surprised at how soft the sandy river bottom was! And hot! The Divas and Dudes collecting junk, above, took care not to interfere with a homeless person and his encampment in the trees on the far side of the river downstream.

Directly across from the entry to the river bank was another homeless encampment that seemed to have been abandoned. Bags and bags of stuff were removed. There is a growing homeless problem in Tucson which I fear may become worse with the rapid rise of rents in the city. The city and county governments are trying to take steps to deal with the sudden rise in real estate prices and rents, much of which is due to California investors buying up properties they see as bargains then raising the rents. Locals are being priced out of their homes.

Anyway…after an hour’s work we collected over 100 plastic garbage bags of junk that should have never been in the river.

Trashy Divas are doers

The Trashy Divas [and Dudes] is just the right kind of group for these days: no officers, no boards, no meetings, no lunches. Just a group of doers who care about Tucson picking up trash in parks and neighborhoods for one hour at a time twice a month. Once on Monday, once on Saturday. It’s usually a different group of people at each clean-up. No body takes roll! To join, visit our Facebook page.