Smith Canal Task Force

Smith Canal Newspaper Articles

The following article appeared in The Record, Stockton's local daily newspaper.

Originally Published Sunday, July 27, 2003 Annual waterway cleanup yields furniture, garbage By Neil Gonzales Volunteers cleaning up Smith Canal in Stockton once fished out enough furniture to deck out an entire living room. Saturday, a crew of volunteers was well on its way to a repeat performance. "This morning, we pulled out a refrigerator, a mattress, a cushion and miscellaneous debris," said Wendi Maxwell, a member of the Friends of Smith Canal. About 60 people participated in the annual cleanup of the canal and Yosemite Lake. It is a campaign spearheaded by the neighborhood group with help from public agencies. Volunteers swept along the banks and used boats and hooks to reach trash floating on the water. "It's become a sewage pond," Friends member Nita Rienhart said. "We've pulled out iceboxes, televisions and tires in the water and along the levee." One year, Rienhart said, volunteers fished about 120 shopping carts out of the canal, which runs west to east, from Louis Park to American Legion Park. The Friends launched the cleanup six years ago. Each outing has filled two or three garbage bins on average, Maxwell said. All the residential refuse and agricultural pollutants carried by farmland runoff have contributed to unhealthy water quality, said Susan Mora Loyko, city stormwater outreach coordinator. The community cleanup is a way to counter that and raise awareness, she said. "It gives a sense of ownership that this is our waterway, and we have to take care of it to keep it healthy." Those at the cleanup enjoyed contributing. "The canal could be very beautiful if we take care of it," said Lisa Shubert, 48. Her 16-year-old daughter, Sarah, finds satisfaction helping get the area in better shape. "It needs work," the teen said. "But I like looking at it after and seeing we made a small difference."

See photos by Record photographer MICHAEL McCOLLUM