The Greater Trail Community Skills Centre usually celebrates B.C. Rivers’ Day with a public event aimed at raising awareness around the Columbia River as a key, multi-faceted resource for our community.

This year, the Skills Centre opted to recognize the day with direct action to restore the downtown shoreline to its natural beauty.

On Sept. 28, 13 volunteers from Fortis, and the staff and board of the Greater Trail Community Skills Centre, teamed up to clean the downtown Trail shoreline from the Old Bridge down to the Fortis Building.

They were joined by four cadets from 131RCSCC (Sea Cadets).

Three truckloads of articles were carted off to the recycling/landfill and weighed in with a total of 715 kg of junk.

They removed shopping carts, a lot of broken bottle glass, scrap metal and a wide variety of stuff from a disposable diaper to a heavy gauge anchor chain.

Hard on the heels of this effort is another practical project that we hope will raise our community’s awareness of the river as a year-round natural habitat.

Volunteer Skills Centre staff painted fish stencils near storm drain inlets in downtown Trail last Friday.

This initiative is supported by the City of Trail, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the B.C. Ministry of the Environment and the B.C. Conservation Foundation.

Groups in many communities have marked thousands of city drains to remind residents and businesses that dumping in storm drains pollutes local rivers, streams, and wetlands.

Pollution in the Columbia River comes from many sources: litter and garbage, household cleaners and chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides, gasoline, used motor oil and antifreeze.

These pollutants are washed by rainwater and melting snow from our streets, yards, driveways and parking lots into storm drain inlets.

These storm drains don’t lead to a wastewater treatment plant, they carry untreated water directly into our river.

Deliberate dumping of hazardous materials into storm drains makes the pollution problem worse.

Motor oil is sometimes dumped down storm drains, yet just one quart of oil can ruin the quality of 250,000 gallons of water.

Residents are encouraged to properly dispose of these materials.

The stenciled fish is being painted to remind citizens to not dump waste into storm drains or contribute more pollutants to ordinary storm water by littering.