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Jed Boal ReportingVolunteers will kick off an unprecedented community campaign to clean up the Jordan River tomorrow. A change in perception about the urban waterway could breathe new live into the Jordan River.
Plenty of people enjoy the Jordan River Parkway and treat the river like a treasure; others treat it like an open sewer. A clean-up campaign aims to make sure we all see it in a positive way.
The Jordan River flows high on its banks as it carries water from the Wasatch Front to the Great Salt Lake.
Jeff Salt, Great Salt Lakekeeper: "The Jordan River has always been a jewel hidden in the rough."
People play on the parkway and boat there; others treat it like a garbage can, even worse, a community dump.
Jeff Salt: "This garbage has been accumulating for years, and it hasn't been addressed."
So Jeff Salt rallied support to clean it up. Tomorrow the 2006 Jordan River Parkway Clean-up Campaign begins a summer-long effort to get the junk out of there.
Jeff Salt: "This is the first time we've had a focused community effort of this scale to look at cleaning up the entire Jordan River Parkway."
They're focusing on the entire river through Salt Lake County. Volunteers and community groups will roll up their sleeves, the county and municipalities will lend muscle and dumpsters.
Volunteers will find all kinds of garbage tomorrow, everything from an old car seat to fluorescent tubes - all things people have dumped there over the years."
Jeff Salt: "People have been throwing their waste down here so long, now we're going to clean it up."
They will paint the handrails at riverside parks.
For the first time, corporate sponsors pitched in financial support to get the river flowing in the right direction. REI, Chevron and Smith's Food and Drug sweetened a clean-up fund that now totals nearly 30-thousand dollars.
Jeff Salt: "The energy that we're generating from the clean-up campaign we're hoping will help us build a river community. That's one of our ultimate goals."
The more appealing the parkway becomes, the more people will come down and enjoy it.
Clean-up tomorrow starts at 9:00 at the Redwood Trailhead Park.
Redwood Trailhead Park
2320 South 1100 West
Saturday, June 10
9 a.m.
Directions: Take Redwood Road to 2320 South. Head east on 2320 South. It dead ends at the park on the river.
