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MCA Blog
Earth Day is this week! While we can’t be together, each of us can still celebrate from a distance! Earth Day is a special day designated to demonstrate your support for the environment. We hope you will enjoy this exercise we put together for you. Using the same methods that are being employed by scientists and the US EPA, you can experiment with trash!
See video and pictures to accompany this exercise HERE.
Mill Creek Alliance, Coca-Cola Consolidated, and Osprey Initiative announce a pilot program to collect and remove recyclable materials from the waterways in the Greater Cincinnati area using devices called Litter Gitters. In addition to collecting and removing materials from the waterways, this pilot program will gather data and find sustainable solutions for the future using the materials gathered from the Litter Gitters. Litter Gitters are small stream litter collection devices used to intercept floating debris from storm water runoff. The devices will be cleaned weekly and after heavy rains in the area, if needed. Osprey Initiative will employ a number of local personnel to maintain the traps, creating Green Jobs in the area. Osprey Initiative will install the first Litter Gitters of this pilot program on February 11, 2020!
Coke Consolidated is the largest Coca-Cola bottler in the United States. Their Purpose is to honor God, serve others, pursue excellence and grow profitably. For 118 years, they have been deeply committed to the consumers, customers, and communities they serve and are passionate about the broad portfolio of beverages and services they offer.
Osprey Initiative, LLC is a specialty environmental contractor bringing tailored solutions for specific environmental. Their work to bridge the gap between intent and action in the sustainability world by focusing on implementable projects to fit client needs. Ohio is the third state and eighth watershed where Litter Gitters have been deployed.
About two weeks ago, our partners at Keep Cincinnati Beautiful offered to provide a Rumpke dumpster for tire removal if we needed it. MCA took this question to our star volunteers at the Mill Creek Yacht Club (MCYC) where the answer was an emphatic “YES PLEASE”. Less than 14 days later we find ourselves with all this:
MCYC volunteers started gathering tires from the lower Mill Creek the week of September 23rd, in preparation for our Run the Riffles event at Salway Park. As you many know, rainfall in Cincinnati has been minimal all summer, and the water in the Mill Creek has gotten fairly low. In the eyes of the MCYC, this is the ideal time to remove tires from the creek because they are much easier to get out of the creek bed. This opportunity allowed for a bit of healthy competition to see who could remove the most tires in an hour, in a day, in a week!
At the end of the “competition” this vibrant group of volunteers has removed 258 tires (plus 4 bikes and a motorcycles) from the Mill Creek between Salway Park and Millcreek Road in less than two weeks. So far, these volunteers have put in over 122 hours of time on this project, and they are not done yet.
This mission has been accomplished! Tire Sweep 2019 wrapped up yesterday when crews in shifts worked to dump all the tires into the Rumpke donated dumpster! There is no job too big for these dedicated volunteers.
NOTE: A group of vultures is called a committee, venue or volt. In flight, a flock of vultures is a kettle, and when the birds are feeding together at a carcass, the group is called a wake.
The Green Team traveled to Edge of Appalachia Preserve for three days of camping, trail work, and creek time! This annual trip is possible because of our incredible partnership with Ohio Nature Conservancy. While there, they worked to install punch-ins, or small boardwalks, on Buzzardroost Rock Trail to help keep visitors out of the mud in wet areas. This included measuring, cutting, and carrying in all of the lumber about a quarter way up the trail (which was no small task, with each person taking an average five trips with lumber!). Working together, the group built two long sections of punch-ins and learned how to customize them to better fit the trail. We celebrated a very productive workday by visiting the local Amish market afterward for some sweet treats! The final day was spent kayaking as a group down the Ohio Brush Creek. The group also enjoyed plenty of downtime, swimming in the creek, playing games, and hanging out in their tents. Thank you to all who make this trip possible! We are already looking forward to next year!
On June 22, elected officials and the public gathered to learn about the Mill Creek and Triangle Trail initiative. Thirty-one adventuresome souls paddled from Twin Creek Preserve to Evendale Commons with the Mill Creek Yacht Club, followed by lunch and presentations.
Check out this article that Fox 19 published about the event!
Last fall, freshwater mussels were reintroduced to the Mill Creek at two locations. These were the first mussels in Mill Creek for over 100 years.....we thought. At our first ever Mill Creek BioBlitz at Salway Park on June 1, a volunteer found a mussel shell at the upstream riffle we installed in 2018. The mussel has now been positively identified: it is a recent shell of a female fatmucket, also known as a yellow mucket. Although the species is widespread in the state, this is the first record of this species in the Mill Creek. It means it is quite likely that there are other mussels in the stream, at least below Salway. Larval mussels (glochidia) spread by attaching to the gills of fish, then later dropping off. By opening up more of the stream to fish migration, it’s open for mussel migration also.
Thank you to everyone who made the first ever BioBlitz on the Mill Creek a great success! We cataloged over 100 different aquatic and terrestrial species, including macroinvertebrate indicators of good water quality like crayfish and caddisflies. This whole event would not have been possible without our amazing partners at Midwest Biodiversity Institute, Patagonia, Hamilton County Soil and Water Conservation District, Mill Creek Yacht Club, Benchmark Outdoor Outfitters, Buckeye United Fly Fishers, Nature Conservancy in Ohio, US Fish and Wildlife, Cincinnati Museum Center and many more! If you would like to see all the different species we found, please check out iNaturalist.org (under projects search for, "BioBlitz on the Mill Creek") as we used this awesome app (as well as pen and paper, those results will follow shortly) to log all of our findings! It was truly reaffirming to all the work we do to see the communities surrounding Mill Creek interacting with all the life blossoming on its banks! Thank you again!
Deputy Director, Tanner Yess, recently co-authored a case study of green infrastructure work in the Mill Creek watershed. The article was published last month in the journal, Water. Check out the full text here!
