(lively music) - Hello, and welcome to "The Journal."

I'm Steve Kendall.

One of the major resources we have in Northwest Ohio are rivers, lakes, and streams, and all of the other waterways that connect with that.

It's a significant part of what makes Northwest Ohio a great place to live.

But along with those resources comes the responsibility of maintaining those waters so we may enjoy them for recreation, drinking, and all the other things that we use them for.

One of the groups involved in preserving and improving the quality of that particular resource is Partners for Clean Streams.

We're joined by Cassondra Prchlik.

We thank you for coming on today on "Journal," Cassondra.

- Yes, thank you for having me.

Good to be here.

- Now, talk a little bit about Partners for Clean Streams for people who may not know about the organization, but kind of give us some background and maybe a little history of the organization.

- Oh yeah, for sure.

So just as an overview of what Partners for Clean Streams is, our passion is we work for clear, clean, and safe water for everyone.

We do this through a combination of partnerships, leadership on planning, public education, volunteer opportunities like Clean Your Streams Day 25, and large scale restoration projects.

We strive for abundant open space and high quality natural environment.

And we promote the adequate flood water storage capacities and flourishing wildlife.

And we'd like to engage stakeholders to take ownership of their rivers, streams, and lakes.

- And obviously, Lake Erie, incredible focus right now on that because of things that have happened over the past several years.

But one of the things that I was looking through material on the organization, really this goes back to 1987, the original starting to focus on the issues regarding the Great Lakes and Lake Erie in particular.

So the group has a long history of activity in this area.

So talk a little about the evolution from year one to what we're now in, year 25.

- Yeah, so we initially, Partners For Clean Streams was formed in 2007, but we kind of formed out of the Remedial Action Plan Committee, which focused on the restoration of the Maumee Area of Concern.

And the Maumee Area of Concern is part of the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement.

So one of the policies we have in the Great Lakes is the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement, and this is an international policy between the United States and Canada.

And one aspect of this policy is defining areas of concern on the Great Lakes.

And the Maumee, as you mentioned, an area of concerned.

So the work of the Maumee Area of Concern Committee and its partners including the Ohio EPA occurs in stages to permanently improve water quality in the rivers and streams of the area of concern.

So they do this by correcting and removing biological and chemical issues, or as they have been considered under the Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement is the beneficial use impairments.

And so the Maumee Area of Concern has nine of these 14 beneficiary use impairments that impair waterways that ultimately flow into Lake Erie.

And these issues are being addressed by the now standalone committee of the Maumee AOC and its partners.

And Partners for Clean Streams helps facilitate the Maumee Area of Concern.

But it did, the Partners for Clean Streams initially stemmed out of the Maumee Area of Concern back in, like you said, 1987 is when we initially started helping with the beneficiary use impairment 11, the degradation of aesthetics.

- And along the way there've been, yeah, well, it's a long history, but it's an important one.

Other organizations, I know at one time Toledo Metropolitan Area Council of Governments was involved a little bit in some and there've been various plans within the plans, those sorts of things.

As this has evolved, what has been the main area of concern?

What areas, when you look at Partners for Clean Streams, is there a particular focus, one thing that you work on specifically?

I know you have a long list of things, obviously, but what's the primary thing?

What's the biggest issue you've dealt with in this area of concern for the Maumee River?

- So for Partners for Clean Streams specifically, we focused on removal of marine debris.

Yeah, so we're actually a part of a couple of other plans as well.

So we're part of the Great Lakes Marine Action Plan, which is by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

So this is a five-year program action plan that's goal is to get the great lakes free of marine debris.

And as we all know, Lake Erie starts and its tributaries like the Maumee River.

So we employ our volunteers or deploy our volunteers to go out and do citizen science.

So as they're collecting marine debris, they're actually gathering data of what type of marine debris we have out there.

And so we can see what we have, where we have it, and we can then contribute to not only the Great Lakes Marine Debris Action Plan, but also local municipalities also get the data from Clean Your Streams Day 25, or from Clean Your Streams Day to help with their stormwater plan.

So we do give our information, our data that we've collected to local municipality so that they can use it and present it to their departments.

- Yeah, and I know that one of the projects I've recently heard about in Lucas County, Swan Creek is a major tributary feeds into Maumee Bay.

Project underway there or will be in a few years to do exactly that, to clean the Swan Creek watershed, which is of course Swan Creek and then all of the ditches and creeks and things that feed into that.

And one of the major things is the amount of debris that is collected over 80, 90, 100 years in those tributaries.

So yeah, debris cleaning and debris removal is a huge part of this.

You mentioned volunteers.

Talk about how people become involved and maybe the numbers of people you've had in the past at certain events, because it is primarily a volunteer organization.

That's what happens.

- Oh yeah, we're completely volunteer.

We're a small staff of three.

And our central goal is to organize volunteers.

Yeah, our volunteers are amazing.

I don't know how to describe it otherwise.

You meet so many incredible people working for Partners for Clean Streams, or even as other volunteers interact with other volunteers.

Yeah, I don't know how to express how amazing and how unique everyone finds their way to Partners for Clean Streams.

There are so many different stories that people, how people have found Partners for Clean Streams, whether it be, you know, like my mom and dad volunteered for Partner for Clean Streams.

And, you know, I think that they had a really good time, and so now I wanna partake in it, or it's something as simple as seeing a flyer or someone stumbled across our website by searching other things, like you mentioned, 'cause we do a wide variety of things or people just having a love for their waterways.

Yeah, it varies.

- Yeah.

Well, when we come back, let's talk about some of the other initiatives you have.

And then of course we wanna focus on the Clean Your Stream 25, which is coming up in just a few days right after this will air.

So we'll be back in just a moment with Cassondra Prchlik from the Partners for Clean Streams here on "The Journal."

Thanks for staying with us on "The Journal."

Our guest is Cassondra Prchlik from the Partners for Clean Streams, and they have a special event coming up.

It's a year round project, obviously, and has been going on for a number of years.

But when we'll talk a little more detail about it, but Clean Your Streams 25 comes up on September 18th to the 25th, and we'll be talking more about that shortly.

The organization has a lot of other initiatives though that over the years that have been done.

And I was looking through some of the material.

Work in Camp Miakonda on stream restoration there.

Ottawa Hills where the Ottawa River runs through.

A project there, the Stewardship of the Ottawa River where it goes through a heavily residential area, obviously in Ottawa Hills and then through the University of Toledo and then on out to Lake Erie.

So talk a little bit more about some of those other projects, the ones that, you know, that people would recognize or know about a little bit.

- Yeah, so Camp Miakonda, as you mentioned, had a small amount of restoration work done on the downstream side of Hartman ditch culvert where water flowing through the culvert had started to quickly drop off into Lake Sawyer.

So it was a small engineering rock rifle was added downstream of the culvert, and the slope of the ditch was reduced to decrease the velocity of the water and ease the stream to lake transition.

- Okay.

And when you look at those areas, now that's a fairly, well, that's almost like more of a wilderness area.

That's a park sort of setting in there.

When you get to other areas where you're talking population like Ottawa Hills, what's that project like in terms of its scope, because now you're going through a residential area in some cases, although there are floodplains in there and things of that nature.

So what are some of the things that would've happened with that Stewardship of the Ottawa Hills where the river runs through there?

- So it was a habitat restoration to enhance the Ottawa River.

So the restoration project resulted in long-term benefits for the Ottawa River itself, focusing on those BUIs that we mentioned in our previous section for the loss of fish and wildlife habitat and the degradation of the sediment on the bottom on the river.

- Yeah, and obviously, and we talked about the cleaning of these various tributaries and waterways.

That affects, I think as you said, that affects the environment, not just for human beings, but of course all the wildlife, the fish, that sort of thing.

So it's important to restore those areas to something close to what they were before, before we started basically habitating in this area where man finally arrived.

So it's important just to restore those areas to make them, again, more useful for everyone at that point and the animals themselves.

- Definitely.

- Yeah, now one of the things too, and we talked about the volunteer project, Clean Streams 365, okay.

I know we're gonna talk about this specific event coming up, but do you provide, for people who want to do this, some level of training or instruction on, 'cause let's just say you shouldn't just go out and jump in your local stream and see what's there.

You should probably have a little more expertise than that.

And I know that the times I've done it, sometimes it's kind of amazing and kind of scary what you find in streams and ditches and creeks or whatever, because they haven't been touched for quite some time.

So what kind of training, what kind of instruction do you give folks that volunteer, for instance, for the event that's coming up or just in general if they get really excited about this and want to go out and say, you know, I think I'll go back and look at the Creek behind my house and see what's there.

So talk a little about what you provide for volunteers.

- Yeah, so for Clean Your Streams 365, we have a form online that you fill out.

We can help you with the location.

We provide you with all of the safety supplies so that you're safe when you go out.

When you come pick up your supplies, we do have a brief talk about what you should do if you find certain items that might need to be disposed of in a certain way.

'Cause you do find a lot of things out there.

But for Clean Your Streams Day, the 25th day of Clean Your Streams that's coming up, we do have site captain training.

So one member of your group needs to participate in a site captain training so that way they are well-informed and well-versed on if anything were to happen.

If someone were to faint, if someone, you know, gets cut.

We have first aid kits, we have the works for anything imaginable happening because it can get quite risky out there.

We like to prepare for the absolute worst so that way everyone can be safe.

- Yeah, and I guess as you look back over time, and I don't know, what are some of the things you typically find?

I mean, obviously I know the times that I've done it, you find lots of bottles.

You find lots of, well, just things that people have thrown away that don't break down.

Bottles, cans, tires, you name it.

I mean, is that the typical thing that people find when they're out there?

Basically manmade things that have been thrown away?

And for some reason, we seem to think our waterways are a great place to dispose of things.

No matter how shallow, wide, not deep they are, it seems like, well, there's a ditch, just throw it in there.

Which is why we have to do this on a regular basis, I guess.

So are those sorts of the typical things that you find?

- Yeah.

Usually you'll find plastic food wrappers, foam pieces, plastic pieces, any type of like tires, we'll find they're quite frequently.

I mean, not a lot of them, but they come up every year.

Cigarette butts, beverage cans, the likes.

- Yeah, I say it seems like that's become our way of disposing of things is to find a waterway and do that.

When we come back, let's talk a little bit specifically about the event on the 25th of September and how people can get involved, and, 'cause I know there's a little bit of training involved, and as you said, a little bit of organization, obviously a lot of organization, but you do want people to participate.

So we'll be back in just a moment with Cassondra Prchlik from Partners for Clean Streams here on "The Journal."

Thank you for staying with us here on "The Journal."

We're talking with Cassondra Prchlik, Partners for Clean Streams.

And we've talked about the background of the organization, the many things that the group has been involved in over the years and of course all the cooperative work with all the different agencies are involved in trying to maintain and improve the watershed here in Northwest Ohio.

You have an event every year.

Obviously we talked about Clean Your Stream 365 'cause every day could be a Clean Your Stream Day, but you have a specific day every year where you talk about and you get people out to focus on that day to clean a local stream, a waterway, a ditch, a creek, whatever it happens to be.

So tell us about, in some detail, Clean Your Stream 25 and maybe about the amount of material that you typically find on this on this day when you do this.

- Yeah, so on average per year, we find around 20,000 pounds of marine debris just in this single event.

- [Steve] Wow.

- Yeah, so last year, our numbers because of the pandemic reduced a little bit, not a lot of people wanted to come out in groups, which is totally fine.

We adapted and we actually have a virtual remote option now so that if you don't wanna gather in a big group, you can still be safe.

But last year we had 431 volunteers, and altogether they removed 16,957 pounds of marine debris out of our waterways.

So that kind of boils down to 33,629 total items removed from our waterway specifically.

- Oh my gosh, and that's just, yeah.

I mean, when you hear numbers like that, it's incredible.

And you think that, and that isn't touching every waterway.

That's the ones that you had people for, which means if you project that over the areas that no one has been in for awhile, it's gotta be pretty scary in that regard.

If I want to be a volunteer for this, what's the process?

And obviously as this airs, we're gonna be pretty close to the date that it starts, but how should people become involved?

What's the simplest way to do it, and what will be their responsibility?

Because some people might say, gee, that seems like an awful lot of effort, a lot of time, things like that.

So kind of explain this process of what Clean Your Stream 25 is.

It isn't that, it isn't like, oh my gosh, I've got to spend the whole day out there doing this.

So talk a little about how much, the ways people can participate, how much and maybe how little they can participate.

- Yeah, okay.

So, first of all, to register for Partners for Clean Streams, or for Clean Your Streams Day, you wanna go to partnersforcleanstreams.org.

There's multiple registration buttons to click for Clean Your Streams Day 25.

And once you get there, you're going to pick a kickoff location.

And there are seven kickoff locations located around the Toledo area.

Near Wood County, there's a Parisburg kickoff.

And then there's also a side cut Metro Park kickoff.

And once you get to these kickoffs, well, first you wanna sign up.

And you'll go through a process.

You'll fill out your name, how many people are in your group, and you'll get a confirmation email.

You're going to have one person in your group sign up for a site captain training, and this will happen virtually.

And you'll get all the information you need from our lovely program coordinator, Liv.

And then when the day comes on September 25th, if that's the day that you signed up for, you'll come up to your kickoff location, you'll grab supplies from are absolutely phenomenal Clean Your Streams Day team.

I feel like it's just worth it to meet them.

They're absolutely amazing people to know and to talk to.

They've been doing this for awhile.

So you've grab your supplies, and they'll send you off to a location that's not necessarily at the kickoff site, but it might be further down the Maumee so that you can do some cleanings.

And then it will take about, you get there around, pick up supplies around 8:00, 8:30.

You'll go the clean up until 11:30, and then at noon, there's going to be an appreciation picnic at the Lucas County Fairgrounds for everyone that has partaken in a Clean Your Streams Day because there's also a virtual aspect, like I mentioned before, where people can sign up for our virtual remote option on our website.

And this kind of operates like our Clean Your Streams 365 program, where any time between September 18th and September 25th, if you need help with the location, we can provide that.

We can also provide supplies.

Yeah, if you sign up for that and you can go out and do it on your own, in your own location, and you can also come to the appreciation picnic and pick up a free t-shirt as well.

- Now, and this is a little maybe off, but with the weather the way it's been, it's been extremely dry for the past several weeks, maybe month or so.

That's probably better for this project because, well, the good news is you're gonna be able to find, have access to more material, the bad news is there's a lot more material now that's accessible as you go through these things.

So the drier weather should it be a benefit, I guess, in that regard.

- Oh, definitely yes.

- And again, to make it clear, people do get instruction and training.

It isn't like say, hey, here's a garbage bag.

Go out and wait around in the water some place.

So I think 'cause, now people need to know that I guess too.

So is there anything that we haven't touched on that you wanna make clear or maybe remind people of anything else, how they can get involved and get in the organization, not just on this one particular day kind of a thing?

- Yeah, and I would also like to touch on the impact of marine debris as well.

So marine debris has a lot of different kinds of impacts.

Like you mentioned before, it is dangerous to wildlife.

It can harm our physical environment.

Not to mention it also hurts our aesthetics.

It degrades community pride, homeowner values, it's egregious, and it can attract more trash.

Marine debris obviously impairs recreation and enjoyment of the rivers.

It also is a high cost to remove.

I think this is something that needs to be known a little bit more about because when it gets trapped in treatment plants or it clogs stormwater drains, marine debris can be really gross when you go to pick it up, but it's even gross your grosser and soggier when it's compacted with a whole lot of other debris, not to mention the hazard pay the worker has to get to remove the marine debris.

So our local municipalities have to pay a lot to get it removed.

So it's much easier to get it removed now than it is before it becomes a really bad incident.

And so because these issues affect our water quality and quality of life in our natural ecosystems, we do have a couple of programs, like you had mentioned, that do, that you can become involved to help reduce these impacts of marine debris.

So we do have Get The Lead Out, which specifically helps with a fishing line removal that happens during the summer months.

We've mentioned before, Clean Your Streams 365, which is a year round Clean Your Streams Day.

We also do Reel and Recycle.

So we recycle fishing line, microfilament fishing line that we find.

We do storm drain marking.

And we also do a little, sometimes in normal years, boat trips for educational purposes about the hazards of marine debris in our waterways.

And so if you'd want to get involved in any of these things, if any of them have piqued your interest, I recommend going to partnersforcleanstreams.org, going to the volunteer part, and filling out how you want to participate in helping your waterways.

You can also follow us on Partner for Clean Streams on Facebook and PCS Maumee for Twitter and Instagram.

- Great, well, thanks.

Cassondra Prchlik, thank you so much.

Partners for Clean Streams.

Clean Your Stream 25 September 25th here in Northwest Ohio.

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us and give us great background and information on how people can get involved in what's a really important part of our environment here, the waterways in Northwest Ohio, the Maumee River.

So thank you again so much.

You can check us out at wbgu.org and you can watch us every Thursday night at 8:00 PM on "The Journal" on WBGU PBS.

We will see you again, next time on "The Journal."

(lively music)