River City Waterway Alliance volunteers clean up South Lake Tahoe meadow
Submitted by paula on Tue, 08/06/2024 - 9:17am
SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. - The Johnson Meadow behind Grocery Outlet in South Lake Tahoe is often the spot where homeless encampments pop up with tents, chairs, sleeping bags, and trash intermingled among the willows, wildflowers, and river.
In early June this year, part-time resident Randy Smith wandered into the meadow and was delighted to see the wildflowers. Those views were quickly replaced with abandoned camp debris. Often a volunteer with River City Waterway Alliance (RCWA) in the Sacramento area, he started to find out how volunteers could get the area cleaned up, especially since the meadow is the floodplain for the Upper Truckee River that flows into Lake Tahoe.
RCWA volunteers remove trash and abandoned camp debris from rivers and waterways in Sacramento, and when Randy shared photos of the trash with them they expressed interest and enthusiasm in coming to South Lake Tahoe to help.
On Saturday, August 3, ten volunteers from Sacramento came to South Lake Tahoe and were joined by two local volunteers and two staff with the Tahoe Resource Conservation District (TRCD) to start the cleanup. TRCD led the group to several abandoned encampment locations in this protected area and provided trash bags and wheelbarrows for their use.
"These 14 eager volunteers gathered all the abandoned camp debris and other debris scattered around the meadow and hauled it all out of the meadow, creating two full pickup loads taken to the dumps by TRCD staff," said Randy.
They cleaned up the areas at Johnson Meadow and, once finished, they caravanned to the second stop, Trout Creek and the popular Indian Grinding Rock, for a picnic lunch. They had intended to continue the trash-finding adventures after lunch, however, Mother Nature had a different plan with heavy rain and lightning. They ran for cover. Once the rain subsided, the three remaining volunteers ventured out to a separate section of meadow to discover and remove additional abandoned and dumped trash. Another large pile was made and the Clean Tahoe Program graciously picked it up, said RCWA.
