Nonprofit organization Fish For Garbage saw an impressive turnout at its Saturday cleanup of the lower Provo River, which flows from Summit and Wasatch counties into Utah Lake. Nearly 540 people spent their morning wandering along the waterway at Mount Timpanogos Park in Orem.  Most held a claw grabber in one hand and a yellow trash bag in the other. Heber City resident Kenna Isom’s hands were even fuller with the leashes of her two dogs, Irish setter, Shadow, and blue heeler-Labrador mix, Kovu. Isom came to the cleanup with a group of friends and clients, who brought their own dogs for outdoor training through Isom’s company, KBK Training. “What we try to do is get these dogs to be reliable in outdoor scenarios with lots of distractions, with wildlife and bikes and other people and other dogs,” Isom explained.  Rocky, a Newfoundland-poodle mix, was the most free-spirited canine, galloping into the river for a quick drink despite his owner’s protests. Meanwhile, Shadow and Kovu were model students, sitting politely at the top of a slope as Isom wandered closer to the riverbank in search of garbage. Her search came up short, apart from a few wrappers and a stray Easter egg. Only an hour into the cleanup, the riverbank closer to the starting area was mostly spotless. South Jordan resident Dyson Bunkal had more luck by driving his pickup truck along U.S. 189, going to areas other volunteers weren’t.  He came back with a truck bed full of garbage bags. The oddest thing he found? Multiple used diapers. No piece of litter surprises Fish For Garbage President Jared Winkler anymore. “Probably anything you can imagine, we’ve found,” he said.  Fish For Garbage filled four dumpsters with trash found in and around the lower Provo River on Saturday. Credit: Photo by Albert Dera, courtesy of Fish For Garbage He listed plastic water bottles, cans, flip-flops, popped tubes, couches, mattresses and car-related waste, whether it be unsecured goods flying off the back of a truck or stray debris from a crash. Winkler is a fisherman from Salt Lake City. He started Fish For Garbage with a group of anglers in 2015 to help address the garbage they saw in and around Utah’s public access waterways. The Provo River cleanup was the first of six summer cleanups across Utah. While the annual events offer a chance to make a difference on a large scale, Winkler was hopeful participants would get in the habit of picking up garbage while they recreate, too. Tyler Robinson, a fisheries biologist with the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, who tabled a booth during the cleanup, echoed that sentiment.  “I’ve been seeing a lot more anglers carrying a mesh sack on their hip,” he said. “They’re picking up bottles and cans as they fish. That’s something simple a lot of people can do.” Robinson’s coworker, Mike Slater, said his biggest concern regarding pollution of the Provo River is population growth in Summit and Wasatch counties. Summit County’s roughly 43,000 population is expected to grow to nearly 57,000 by 2065, according to data from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute. Meanwhile, Wasatch County is the fastest-growing county in the state, projected to grow from about 39,000 to over 84,000 in the next 40 years. Longtime Fish For Garbage volunteer and Heber City resident Tanner Renshaw shared Slater’s concern. “I’d love to see Heber stay small, but I get that it’s growing a lot. So, it’s just kind of a balance of growing the right way and growing in a way that is still mindful of the resources that we have and trying to be as sustainable as possible,” he said. Water conservationists and developers have butted heads repeatedly in Wasatch County, most recently when the Utah Department of Transportation announced its plan to build the U.S. 40 bypass in the North Fields, a freshwater wetland area.  The project area for the elevated highway is in the contributing area to the middle Provo River, but UDOT maintains that the river’s waters will not be significantly impacted by the bypass because of construction methods that will mitigate pollutant discharge. Whether or not pollution from the project occurs, Wasatch Back residents are determined to preserve the Provo River. Park City angler Zack Leader participates in cleanups because he wants to preserve Utah’s waterways for his children to enjoy when they’re grown up.  “I’ve done hunts in Arkansas, and they joke that the state flower there is a white Styrofoam cup. People drink from them, and they throw them out the window. You have this beautiful flyway and great river system. And anywhere you drive, it’s just litter, either side you look,” he said. “It just goes to show, if you don’t take care of it, and you don’t do things like this, it gets out of hand pretty quick.” While Slater has concerns about potential negative effects on the Provo River as a result of factors like population growth, he remains optimistic about the river’s long-term protection. “More people means more use, more trash, but it could also mean more people with a concerted effort to take care of it,” he said. Two upcoming Fish For Garbage cleanups local to Summit and Wasatch counties are cleanups at Strawberry Reservoir on June 13 and the Kamas Valley on Sept. 12. Learn more and register at fishforgarbage.org. The post Volunteers from Summit, Wasatch counties ‘Fish For Garbage’ along the Provo River appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less