Constitution Lakes Clean Up 11/11/13

Early mornings are a 50/50 love hate thing for me. Yesterday, that would be 11/9/13 I conducted a clean up at Constitution Lakes as my final part of my Ocean for Life Action Plan. I had so much fun despite a few rough patches and a couple complications. The first thing that I started off with was developing a PowerPoint that outlined how we, as human beings, are connected to the ocean in all the things that we do and about my experiences in the OFL program. I then reached out to my sister's school, Atlanta Neighborhood Charter Middle School, in the hopes of presenting to a few science classes. I got such a positive response to my presentation that I ended up presenting to the entire 6th grade and 7th grade! That means that I talked to over 300 kids! During the presentation, the kids not only learned about watersheds and how we are interconnected to the ocean, but also got to talk to the wonderful Ayyad El-Masri who was also a alum from the OFL program, a dear friend, and a proud citizen of Lebanon. Check out this scream shot:

Ayyad talking to the 6th grade class at Atlanta Neighborhood Charter Middle School.

I loved seeing how much the kids genuinely enjoyed talking to me about what they knew about the ocean and the different conservation efforts they had been part of. There was a girl who came up to me at the very end of one of my 6th grade classes who asked me for my autograph. She told me: "I only ask for autographs from people who seem to really care about what they are talking about. Oh, and because you didn't make me bored!" You have no idea how proud I was to hear this. Initially I thought it was a very childish, almost silly thing to say to me. How was I every going to be a celebrity of the ocean? Only people like Jean-Micheal Cousteau and his dad were celebrities. But then I realized how, very un-Ocean for Life Alum I was being. After all, isn't one of the things that we learned/are teaching is that everyone who becomes involved and educated about the threats that the ocean faces becomes a hero of the environment? The environmental stewards of the world are heroes just like Superman and Batman. We might not wear capes and masks but instead wear the superhero uniform of a jeans and a t-shirt.

After my time at  the middle school I had the happy chance to present with one of my fellow Ocean for Life Alum Justin Cucchi (who also happens to live in Atlanta) at his school, Henry W. Grady High School, to the Earth Club.

After the Earth Club I finished off my OFL Action Plan with a clean-up at Constitution Lakes. I realized that one of the many problems that the environment suffers is that many people don't realize that they can get out and help close to home. All the major rivers on the edges of Atlanta are popular places to hold clean up where lots of people go canoeing, kayaking, mountain biking, and camping. The bigger problem is that not a lot of people are aware of their local, and often hidden wildlife areas. This in turn means that only a special few know about the area which means that it can be taken advantage of an turned into a secret landfill. In Atlanta, it costs to take certain things to a dump, so it's easier to sneak off to a unknown area and dump it there. Only problem is that Constitution Lakes is one of those places. It will take years for us to raise the amount of awareness that the Chattahoochee river has, but every little clean up and visit makes a difference.

Constitution Lakes is a Dekalb County park only 15 minutes away from my house that is sandwiched in between two truck stops. You'd think that it would be loud and noisy but the only thing that you hear is the screaming of a train every now and then. I planned everything out with Joy Carter, the President of the Atlanta Audubon Society, a family friend, and a wonderful person overall and we held this awesome clean up. While we had very few people we got a ton done. We rolled 15 tires closer to the entrance of the park so that the country could pick them up (only 75 more to go!), picked up an entire truck bed worth of trash, and eradicated about 150 square feet privet. All of that in 3-4 hours! Check out the pictures form the clean up here:

Ready for action

Mirror Surface

Justin fishing out some of the first pieces of trash.

Early mornings are way too bright for pictures.

Setting Forth

Checking out the Pilliated Woodpecker across the water.

Casey dragging in some bottles. 

Violet and her dad Paul working on untangling fishing net. 

So close!

Joy trying to instruct us on something.....

Off to work we go!

Best not to wear your white shoes to the clean up, no matter how old. 

Casey, Paul, Susie, and Violet digging out some trash. 

While digging pieces of glass out of the ground we found a Marbled Salamander (Ambystoma opacum).

Taking a break for a little bit of history about Constitution Lakes. 

South River train trestle. 

The 90 tires that were pulled out of the river a month ago. 

A little bit of found art made by some of the friends of Constitution Lakes. 

Get it, springs? Bed springs? There is a lot of large pieces of trash such as beds that are too big to remove. It is more dangerous to disturb the surrounding area and risk destroying a habitat than it is to eradicate the trash. 

Constitution Lakes  was actually a brickwork area way back during the Civil War. I highly recommend you check it out in the Pulitzer Prize winning book "Slavery by Another Name" by a neighborhood acquaintance Dough Blackmon. 

Tons of people leave a little message or their name to make their little mark on the park on the left over pieces. 

My sister Yi-Shan left her mark too. 

To my dearest Maeve and Mattie, our A Capella group is engraved in brick!

The lakes also suffer from ATV abuse and motorcycles that rip through the ground illegally. 

Casey snapping a picture of the now, trash free patch. We were unable to reach of of the stuff that was floating further out in the water and will need to return later with a kayak or canoe to fish the rest out. 

All of the participants had a blast and are really inspired to do more. Violet and Paul who were from the charter school and are now really excited to invite their friends down to the park, participate in more clean ups, and enjoy all the birds that they were learning about. Justin and his mom were astounded by the hidden gems that were sitting right in front of them and Justin is excited to invite his Earth Club to another clean up. Joy was overjoyed that we got so much trash picked up. I was relieved and sad. I have been working hard on this project ever since I got home and by working on the project it somehow felt like I was more connected to the ocean more, but I know that by finishing one project does not at all mean that I will stop working to protect the ocean. I am just as close to the ocean as I was before I started the project only now I know that I am even more connected than I was before going through the OFL program. For now, I shall take a break from all the paperwork but never fear, I'll have something new cooked up sooner rather than later that will have me mucking through the local wetlands teaching more people about how we can help the ocean!