On April 21, the Midwest Environmental Justice Organization’s Starkweather team joined the Gambian Youths of Wisconsin and East Madison Community Center youth to clean up trash trapped in a large city storm drain across from the Truax apartments. This drain captures stormwater runoff from a system of underground storm drain pipes beneath a large area– and the drain’s discharge flows into a marshy area that eventually connects with the west branch of Starkweather Creek.[1]
Why did we clean out a storm drain? MEJO Starkweather team members first noticed the trash dam in early March (it included two car tires!) and notified City of Madison Engineering, which sent city crews out to clean it up a few weeks later. But city crews left a lot of the trash there (including one tire). When city engineering didn’t respond to our request that they remove all of it, we teamed up with the Gambian Youth Organization to do it ourselves on Earth Day weekend.
In all, we removed about ten very large bags of trash from the storm drain and marshy area and stream near it. While the storm drain discharges surface water that originally fell on asphalt and concrete, it flows into a winding stream amidst trees and marsh grasses–a beautiful area that is home to many birds and wildlife.
Some of our courageous volunteers went to great lengths to remove the trash trapped deep inside the storm drain and stream next to it—including putting on waders to get trash at the bottom of the stream.
See photos below and gallery of photos here.
[1] This drain captures stormwater runoff from the Truax apartments, the intersection of Stoughton and E. Washington. An intermittent stream that flows into into the pond area where the drain disharges (behind the woman in pink below) receives runoff from MATC and the Air National Guard base.
