By KIRBY NEUMANN-REA
News editor
October 10, 2007

Team Malibu, Team DeSoto and Team Scotch broom wrested weeds, old wood, tires, car parts, a bed, bags of trash and pieces of metal of all sorts from Indian Creek Saturday morning.

Trash, much of it buried on hillsides, was found and removed by about 30 volunteers in a vigorous work party at the Columbia Gorge Community College Hood River site, now under construction just southeast of 13^th and Pacific on the Heights.

The work party was coordinated by the college, Hood River Watershed Group, Farmers Irrigation District and the Hood River County Parks and Recreation District, who will share use and development of the creek and future trail section after the college is built in fall 2008.

“We’re very pleased with that effort and the results, and we’re lined up really well for the airlift,” said Steve Stampfli, Watershed Group coordinator. Sometime in late October, a Bonneville Power Administration helicopter will lift out the heavy stuff.

The work party gathered on the trail south of Nix Drive, and fanned out along and across the creek on college and Down Manor property.

Volunteers ranged from Jaydon Gabriel, 7, who came for a Cub Scout project with his mom, Lisa, to John Ihle of Hood River Master Gardeners. They formed Team Scotch Broom and pulled the weed from uplands.

Extensive trash removal was among heaps and the bodies of eight old cars on the south side of the creek. Years ago, car bodies had been dumped over the embankment, along with many other items. Volunteers found an old ladder, buckets, a tetherball, beer cans, tires, lumber, chair frames and black trash bags.

Speaking of car bodies, Team Malibu changed its name after it cleared the brush from the rusted, battered hulk and found not a Chevy but an Oldsmobile 482. About 100 yards down a rocky, winding freshly cut trail, Team DeSoto did its best to unearth a 1950s car and several others of indeterminate age.

Once the car bodies are free of tree roots, boulders and debris, the helicopter can come in and pull the cars out.

The helicopter will also hoist the refrigerators, oil tanks, car engines and other heavy refuse volunteers found.

The work party had several purposes, according to Stampfli: esthetic, environmental, and educational.

“Old tires and other organic material can leach things into surface and ground water,” he said. “Tires in particular give off phenols over time. There’s also the issue of oil and grease, and the rust: old iron decomposes and contributes dissolved iron to the water.

“I look upon this as a watershed restoration project, but almost a bigger goal is to create an event that is very visible to the public eye,” Stampfli said.