This Saturday, September 12th, volunteers will get out to the beach in Tacoma for a day of counting and cleaning. Counting the debris they find as they walk a section of shoreline, then cleaning up that garbage as they go, leaving the beaches cleaner and healthier. Part of a weekend of ocean celebration, this cleanup is a collaborative effort from all involved, including Citizens for a Healthy Bay, South Sound Surfrider and Oceanfest. Originally scheduled for April, the event has been moved and changed, due to the… never mind. Pretty sure everyone knows what 2020 has been all about.

Sign up here. Watch the short introductory video here. Then go out on Saturday for a while – you pick the beach and the time – and do your own survey and cleanup. Make sure that you choose a beach that you can access; Salmon Beach, for example, requires a gate code, while Yowkwala Beach, on the other side of Commencement Bay, can only be accessed by water. (Kayakers are planning to head out from the Dick Gilmur launch at about noon, last I heard.)  There’s no group event this year, no dumpsters on Ruston Way, so please dispose of what you find in an appropriate manner. If you come across items too large to transport, take some photos and include the information in your survey summary. We will make arrangements to get to them later.

In the video, the point is made several times that we really need your report to be sent to the Ikkatsu Project as well as to NOAA. It’s not a difficult step, but it could be easily overlooked. To help make it happen, here’s a little motivation: everyone who sends a copy of his or her summary in to us will be eligible to win a cool prize package from Klean Kanteen. More on this later but the takeaway is that, if you send in your data, you could win! So, send it!

As always, if you have any questions, write or call anytime. See you (virtually) on Saturday.