The River Drive Firewise Group held its First Annual Cleanup Day on Saturday, September 12th. Twenty-six volunteers participated in the cleanup. Many started on their own properties and moved to the common project later in the day.
Our common project was the fishing beaches at the bottom of River Drive, just before the meadow. The beaches had become seriously overgrown. While we were not able to work on the massive willow bushes, we were able to limb up the trees closest to gravel section of River Drive as well as raking up the needles and debris down to the overhead trolley.
We completely filled the 15-foot dumping trailer loaned to us by Tuolumne County’s Solid Waste Department. The Department also loaned us the use of sixty 3x3x3 yard bags for needles and small branches. We also built up an enormous pile of larger branches. The Sheriff’s Department Work Crew brought up a chipper and took care of the pile as well as hauling and dumping the trailer.
Prior to this weekend, the Firewise Group used its $2,000 grant money to have a tree service pick up many of the logs left by PG&E. There are more logs to pick up, particularly at the fishing beaches, but that will have to wait until next year.
In addition, the same tree company, Sindelar Tree Service will be doing heavy masticating and limbing on the 1.25-acre property that extends from Hwy 108 at the top of Old Strawberry Drive down to River Drive. This part of the cleanup is waiting for some rain to fall to minimize the dust from mastication.
