LAKEPORT ? Clear Lake High School biology students found 25-year-old shopping carts, large pieces of foundation and crushed metal among the garbage they picked up Saturday near Forbes Creek.
Volunteers yanked on a metal bed frame stuck beneath dirt for at least 30 minutes.
“They don”t give up,” biology teacher Oscar Dominguez said.
About 30 freshmen and sophomores and 10 of their parents picked up about eight yards of garbage along Forbes Creek from Lakeport Boulevard and Bevins Street to Martin Street. The high school had another cleanup Saturday near the lakeshore in Lucerne across from Foster”s Freeze. Students there collected almost five yards of trash, including more than 100 tires, Dominguez said.
“It”s like a little army of environmentalists,” Dominguez said.
Volunteers in Lakeport found big brushes for cleaning cars, TVs, washing machine parts, tires and culverts.
“Maybe it was used as a dump before,” Dominguez said.
Freshman Marrina Lunas said the interesting things the group found were a baseball, a brand new but old-model film camera, about five fire hydrant hoses and a roll of carpet.
“For baseball games we”d come down here, there would be a lot of trash,” Lunas said. “It”s nice to clean it up finally.”
Lunas said she came out to help the environment.
“It”s just fun to get out with the people in our grades and help the Earth,” Lunas said. “I think more people should get out here and do more volunteer stuff.”
“I could have been sleeping but I got up early to get here,” freshman Nadine Bradley said. “I”m worried about my environment.”
Dominguez started the environmental work project seven years ago that requires biology class students to do four hours of community service, usually cleanups, he said.
“They hate me as soon as I tell them,” Dominguez said. “Once they get out here and spend the day, they see it can be fun cleaning up with other people.”
Freshman Zuhuri Manley came to the cleanup because he has to “pass the class,” he said.
“I think it”s going good and it”s fun ? ish,” Manley said.
“This is my second pair of gloves,” Manley said showing the dirty palms of his gardening gloves. “The other one was totally muddy. I couldn”t pick stuff up.”
Dominguez scouts places that need to be cleaned up and schedules about eight different cleanups every year around Clear Lake, such as in Highland Springs on Earth Day and Scotts Creek.
“It”s kinda neat because I get students who come back after they finish, ?Hey, are there any cleanups?”” Dominguez said.
Dominguez said he hopes the cleanup will instill environmentalism in the students so they continue to volunteer and teach their children to do so.
“The environmental neglect is just something every citizen should be doing something about,” Dominguez said. “These guys are.”
Contact Katy Sweeny at ksweeny@record-bee.com or call her directly at 263-5636, ext. 37.
