The Eyes Of The San Marcos River Continues Efforts To Keep The River Clean
An estimated 20,000 people could make their way to the river during the fest for one weekend, it is easy to estimate this is 20x the average amount of people who visit the environmentally sensitive river on any given weekend.
From July 20 to July 22, 2018, throughout the lower parts of The San Marcos River, The Eyes of The San Marcos River will be actively engaging with the efforts to keep the river clean private of any other affiliation by observing and documenting activity on the water banks and in The San Marcos River.
These efforts include documenting and testing water conditions and tracking floating nonnative in-organic debris from river outfitters.
For the past five consecutive years, a major music festival takes place mid-July, resulting in a taxing number of tubers on The San Marcos River between Guadalupe and Caldwell counties.
An estimated 20,000 people could make their way to the river during the fest for one weekend, it is easy to estimate this is 20x the average amount of people who visit the environmentally sensitive river on any given weekend.
It is noted there is no public restrooms or trash receptacles along the river banks as much of the river runs alongside private property.
Additionally, the average floating trip on this particular stretch of the river is several hours long. The organization of past clean-ups by The Eyes of The San Marcos River during the annual festival has amounted to over 10,000 aluminum cans collected many of which are widely known alcohol brands and over 300 pounds of trash containing flip-flop sandals, tubes and coolers.
A proactive clean up has been the best approach in preventing the waste and distribution of litter which washes downstream from tubing drop-off points.
Volunteers of The Eyes of The San Marcos River spend hours uncompensated during the festival in the river, collecting cans from crowds of tubers while being stationed at different points of the river known for cooler spillovers and potential areas where tubes flip.
Observation during high traffic weekends has resulted in best practices of how to be proactive in the reduction of litter in the area.
Cleaning up after high volume weekends amounted to an overwhelming amount of litter collection and exhausted volunteers in the past.
These past observations have been repeatedly communicated to the festival management and affiliates in how to be responsible and active in educating festival-goers. Recent encouraging action by corporate sponsors has made it known the messages of environmental stewardship have been heard.
Companies and brands who support The Eyes of The San Marcos River and other environmentally focused river organizations are due to the desire of wanting to be responsible for impact and education of the importance of river stewardship and generational integrity.
These companies and businesses feel it is important to be responsible for what happens to their end product full circle.
The Eyes of The San Marcos River hope other brands and companies will also take responsibility for who they endorse and where their product ends up.
A recent underwater video went viral after showing multiple well-known brands of beer cans lodged in the riverbed and seen throughout The San Marcos River after a high traffic weekend during the Memorial Day Holiday.
It is has been up to Spring 2018 that these suggested practices have been notably and efforts will be applied to the festival’s best practices.
Some members and leaders of The Eyes of The San Marcos River have personally chosen to work with the festival and will be compensated by the festival independently.
The Eyes of The San Marcos River feel these actions are encouraging but look forward to the results during and after the festival to speak for the accounted practices which have been advised and communicated to festival organizers.
Past efforts by the organization include advocating for legislative action such as SB 965 in 2017, independently collecting data through surveys and environmental sampling in addition to boots on the ground river cleanups and flood debris cleanup.
Over 2,000 lbs. of litter picked up, extracted and captured from the river annually (over 20,000 cans). Their social media reach collectively exceeds 5k and the FaceBook group continues to grow exceeding 3,800 members who stay informed, participate in river stewardship and support legislature and public officials who stand behind the respect of the pristine river.
The Eyes of The San Marcos River is a grassroots-driven volunteer group in the San Marcos, Texas area. The organization thrives on community members who love and respect the river.
Those who volunteer within many cleanups throughout the year know the importance of keeping the river clean and being a respectful outfitter to the precious resources in Central Texas.
If you like to support or help The Eyes of The San Marcos River, they are currently taking monetary donations to formalize the organization or you can sign up to volunteer for one of their cleanups. Donations online: https://www.paypal.me/
