A Fun Volunteer Day

Last Saturday marked our first Water Quality Volunteer Clean-up Day. At 9 am a motley crew gathered at the pump house on Emerald Dr and Venice Dr to listen to Greg Hoover, our Water Quality Manager, run through the ins and outs of the various rakes and skimming devices that we’d get to play with. It was a great opportunity for homeowners to try out different tools and see what they liked best for use around their own docks.

Greg split us into two groups, one to tackle Emerald Dr and the other to head over to Alpine Dr. In addition to the volunteers, a number of staff were on hand to guide and help out, including our Water Quality Technicians and Water Quality Supervisor (who was kept busy picking emptying the bins of weeds that we were raking out of the lagoons).

In total we had over sixteen volunteers turn out through the morning to help to rake and skim the ends of the channels running up Emerald Drive and the end of the channel at the corner of Alpine Dr and Venice Dr (one of the most visible end channels in the Keys).

A big thank you to all the homeowners/volunteers that gave up a Saturday morning to help clean up these problem areas:

• Pete Wolcott
• Cindy Vallis
• Owen Vallis
• Dan Schreiber
• Ginger Flairty
• Laura Hauck
• David Hauck
• Richard Beck
• Mel Meyers
• Joy Curry Norem
• Carol Yashar
• Wendy Scheck
• Beth Faulconer
• Keiron McCammon
• Eric Pishny
• Norma Rogstad
• Kirk Wooldridge

And to our Water Quality staff members:

• Greg Hoover – WQ Manager
• Jim Hulse – WQ Supervisor
• Meghan Hoffmann – AIS Technician
• Erin Harkins – AIS Technician Intern
• Matt Mallen – Harvester Operator
• Jaxon Nixon – Fragment Control

The clean-up day was a bit of an experiment to see if we could engage homeowners to tackle some of the problem areas our limited staff aren’t always able to get to. Expect more opportunities to volunteer through the summer.