More than 30 people converged on the banks of Baker City’s snowmelt-swollen Powder River on Saturday morning to rid the river corridor of litter.

About 20 people — including several children — were at a registration table at Geiser-Pollman Park to sign up for the event at 10 o’clock.

“You can take two bags. One is for recyclables and the other is for garbage,” said Ben Titus, board of directors member for the Powder Basin Watershed Council, which organizes the annual Earth Day event.

Volunteers gathered more than 150 pounds of garbage and several bags of recyclables Saturday.

Mike and Barbara Meyer have participated in the cleanup every spring and fall since they moved to Baker City three years ago.

The reason is simple:

“Because of our beautiful river. We want to keep it clean,” said Mike Meyer.

As regular walkers of the Leo Adler Memorial Parkway (LAMP) along the river, the Meyers said the volume of trash seems smaller this spring. They speculated that the high water might have washed much of the refuse down the river.

Anna Morgan, outreach and monitoring coordinator for the Watershed Council, said the Powder River cleanup gives residents a new perspective.

“One of the comments I get is ‘I didn’t know there was that much trash in the river,’ ” Morgan said. “For people to come and see pollution in the water source is kind of an eye-opener for some of them.”

During the fall cleanup, when the river level is much lower, volunteers often find unusual items in and along the river, Titus said.

“We pull out tires and even shopping carts in the fall,” he said.

Gretchen Stadler and her friend, Paula O’Neal, celebrated Earth Day by participating in the cleanup.

“We don’t enjoy seeing trash,” Stadler said. “It’s Earth Day. It’s a great day to keep in mind how much we appreciate the Earth and have to take care of it.”

O’Neal said it was a reciprocal thing.

“We have to take care of the Earth if we want it to take care of us,” she said. “There’s no planet B. This is it, baby.”

Several high school students volunteered for the cleanup. Their work was also earning them credit at school.

Besides hanging out with friends, 15-year-old Trinity Frye said the extra credit was a bonus.

Along the Adler Parkway just south of D Street, Frye and her friends were combing the banks of the river under and near the bridge that crosses the river.

“There’s something down there,” Frye said to Kale Cassidy, 14, who was crouched on the bank of the river.

As Cassidy maneuvered closer to the trash and picked it up he exclaimed with disgust: “It’s a poop bag … The things we’ll do.”

Frye and Cassidy along with two others were thorough in getting all of the trash under the bridge as well as along the banks of the river in the area.

Farther north on the Parkway, Diane Wofford and her two granddaughters — Bella Green 11, and her sister, Olivia, 9 — were just as dedicated.

“These guys have been eagle eyes at spotting garbage,” Wofford said about her granddaughters.

See more in the April 24, 2017, issue of the Baker City Herald.