What an amazing three days of marine debris cleanups with incredible crews and weather this past week! We stashed a full super sack of yellow litter bags at Twin Coves and three sacks at Kelgaya-Battery Point! The Taz charter boat and Jake’s gillnetter decks were full of bags from Katzehin, where weather forced us to shuttle off the beach before all the debris could be hauled out. So much styrofoam and plastic everywhere, buoys, bait jars, bottles, buckets, crates, gas cans, tires, drums, rope, PVC, pieces of net and a derelict crab pot, microplastic in all colors of the rainbow from who knows what, tragically, debris from the 2020 landslide disaster, and whaaaa?? a cabbage?
Thank you to all our community supporters: Mike at Ocean Conservancy in Juneau for grant support; Haines Borough for funding the newspaper ads, liability coverage at Katzehin, and supporting a marine debris bin at the new harbor boat launch during May; SWWG; big thanks to Luke & Jake at CIA for boat support; State Parks for retrieving debris in Chilkat State Park; Community Waste for free debris disposal; Tracy at Takshanuk Watershed Council for logistics support and delivering pizza; Cindy & Russ for incredible help organizing; Todd and the M/V Taz; and most of all, thank you to the volunteers who hiked the extra miles and got soaked in seawater to spend three days picking up litter on Haines beaches. You’re an inspiration!
Sincerely,
Molly Sturdevant, Haines Friends of Recycling