Cry me a river

This morning was National River Cleanup Day, sponsored locally by Hands on Bay Area:

I helped out on the Guadalupe River between Woz Way and San Fernando. Nothing makes me hate smoking and plastic shopping bags more than picking them up on creek banks.

There were about 30 volunteers, who brought back an impressive pile of garbage bags:

Evidently, dumping shopping carts over a bridge never gets old:

Homeless encampments are left alone at these cleanup events, although the organizers note the sites and inform the city:

Homeless encampments highlight just how difficult to solve the problems are that cross jurisdictional boundaries. Human waste and garbage are serious pollutants that affect water quality (the purview of the SCVWD.) While the people living along the creeks are breaking the law by trespassing (laws enforced by the city police) they are human beings who need help to get their lives together (services provided by the county.) These different entities do, in fact, get together once or twice a year to try to move people from the creek to shelters, but it’s a year-round problem.