Looking for a way to make a difference in your community on Earth Day? The City of Edmonds invites you to join your friends and neighbors to help plant trees, remove litter and restore native forest habitat in our parks.
The city will be hosting work parties on Saturday, April 22 from 10 a.m. to noon at four parks in Edmonds. Work will include planting trees at Yost Park, picking up litter at Marina Beach and Brackett’s Landing parks, and spreading bark mulch to prepare the soil for fall planting at Pine Ridge Park.
Participants will work under the leadership of city staff and Sound Salmon Solutions’ Edmonds Stewards, which leads habitat restoration events in Edmonds parks year round. Edmonds Stewards volunteers host monthly work parties at Yost, Pine Ridge and Hutt Parks and at the Edmonds Wildlife Habitat & Native Plant Demonstration Garden. All are welcome to participate.
Details regarding the work parties, how to prepare and a list of items to bring are included on the Sound Salmon Solutions’ events page at www.soundsalmonsolutions.org/events. Participation is free but space is limited and preregistration is required. All ages are welcome, with the exception of Yost Park, where participants must be a minimum of 13 years old due to safety concerns. Minors under age 18 must be accompanied by an adult.
Earth Day in Edmonds Parks is presented by the City of Edmonds Parks, Recreation and Human Services Department, the Edmonds Citizens’ Tree Board, the Edmonds Youth Commission and Sound Salmon Solutions.
I’ve volunteered to clean up the beach in the past, and found there were more people than trash at the beach clean up.
It’s a great for young people & children to learn about and practice nature conservation.
I would like to support Earth Day clean up in areas that are not generally as “glamorous” as the beach or parks. For example, I have observed a significant uptick in trash accumulation in the green-spaces near the 99/104 interchange over the past year, specifically the stretch of the 104 between 240th and 205th. Considering this stretch of the 104 is the “Gateway”/Lake Ballinger district that welcomes visitors from the East/5 freeway, it would seem to me that it should be given more attention.
This area is primarily impacted by trash that is left behind by homeless individuals who have sheltered in that area. I’m willing to pitch in and imagine it would require a specialized clean up team to avoid any injuries due to the nature of the refuse.
I’ll have to write/contact to the Mayor’s office to suggest. Perhaps this stretch of the 104 Highway could be adopted by a local business for a longer term solution?
I think the area you speak of is owned by the department of transportation. They are aware of the problem but have limited capacity if I recall. Maybe contact the DOT to inquire about that area.
Also I would mention that the city did talk about that area during a recent council committee meeting and efforts to have WSDOT do regular cleanup.
https://myedmondsnews.com/2023/03/council-committee-hears-updates-on-encampments-hwy-99-transitional-housing
I can’t speak to whether that is actually occurring. I drive by there several times a day and continue to see quite a bit of trash. — Teresa Wippel, Publisher.
I have a novel idea. Instead of trying to eliminate single family zoning, our state Rep.s and Senator could actually do something beneficial and submit a bill to add a 10 or 15 person paid clean-up crew into the WSDOT budget. Give this crew a living minimum wage and present it as a stepping stone into a possible long term career in state civil service. Make it a provision of this bill that all hiring for these positions would come from the currently homeless and unemployed populations; with all hiring done thru our state employment offices and social service agencies. Since this would be a travel all over the state crew, some sort of very basic room and board would also be provided. Sort of modeled on FDR’s CCC. (Sorry for going a little off topic).
A less publicized Earth Day activity is at Southwest County Park from 10-1pm on Saturday April 22. Because this is a Snohomish County Park, it does not fall under the umbrella of the city beach and parks named above. However it is 120 acres of undeveloped forest entirely within Edmonds. Come pull some ivy! EdmondsIvyLeague@gmail.com.
Today I drove by the area I spoke of and there were some shopping carts, one person, and the appearance of camps being established.
Lots of debris and trash.
Does the Ordinance relating to camping on City property not apply in this area b/c of the WSDOT
connection?
Thanks for the link/info Nicole & Teresa.
Don’t bother trying to contact the city about these issues. You’ll get absolutely nowhere at best, or receive snide and condescending responses at worst. The only people that seem to have a handle on this is the EPD, up to and including officers picking up trash on there own. Anyone see any issues with that? On top of that, we have citizens cleaning up 99 on their own, myself included. The more quickly we get a positive change in leadership the better. It’s a culture issue.
The State (WSDOT) does have an “Adopt-A-Highway” program that authorizes community volunteers to help keep our environment clean along highways. We know that WSDOT is understaffed and underfunded, so instead of continually “pointing-the-finger” at WSDOT, why isn’t our City Administration organizing roadside cleanup volunteer efforts under that program (no different than beach cleanup)?
Further, why isn’t City Administration doing more to keep all of our streets, sidewalks and Parks clean from litter – – YEAR-ROUND? We know City staff can’t do it all, so why isn’t there a City program to “incentivize” all the walkers in Edmonds to voluntarily carry a liter “grabber” and trash bag? It may mean putting out a few more garbage cans on streets, but otherwise it could done solely with community volunteers who likely are more than willing to keep our beautiful City clean.