ARLINGTON, Texas—The Fish Creek Cleanup Challenge event on Feb. 24 cleaned up decades-old trash along the creek at Fish Creek Trail.
The Fish Creek Trail in Arlington is a 7.3-mile-long trail that links the cities of Arlington and Grand Prairie. It features heavily-wooded areas, parks and wildflowers in the spring. It goes from Great Southwest Boulevard in Grand Prairie and ends at Cravens Park in Arlington. One of the main features is a long creek that runs parallel to the trail.
Over the years, the trash has built up along the banks. One resident of Arlington, Angel Carter, was concerned about this build-up and started to clean up the creek by herself years ago. She kept on reporting the issue to the city, but “it became apparent that it was a losing battle,” Carter said. “There were decades of rubbish, garbage and litter out there because there’s never been an actual clean-up.”
This inspired Carter to start an official cleanup with dozens of local residents who were also concerned about the garbage in the creek. They started cleaning up the Fish Creek neighborhood park but then decided to concentrate on the trail.
“This is our sixth year of doing the Fish Creek Cleanup Challenge,” Carter said.
The challenge has grown in size over the years. The first year, there were only 11 people cleaning up at one of the bridges. These were Carter’s personal friends and family members. This year they had two teams at areas of the creek that they have not cleaned before.
To honor Carter’s efforts and hard work, Arlington Mayor Jim Ross established April 25 as “Angel Carter Day.” In addition to this honor, Keep Texas Beautiful announced Carter as a winner of the 2022 O.P. Schnabel Volunteer of the Year award. The movement has grown in size and now features a Facebook page with information about this event as well as other volunteer opportunities.
Since the project started, “we have picked up 65,800 pounds of trash so far,” Carter said.
This total does not include a pickup truck that was abandoned on the edge of the creek as well as a hot tub. The Parks and Recreation Department took all day to cut up the hot tub into three pieces and to haul it away.
In addition to the Arlington Fish Creek Cleanup Challenge, there is a group in Grand Prairie that focuses on the trash on its side of the trail. The two groups communicate with each other to plan out the areas where they will pick up the garbage. They then combine the totals.
When they plan out the cleanup sites, they consider locations that are near restrooms for the convenience of the workers. This year they focused on the area behind the Kroger and Comet Cleaners on Green Oaks Boulevard. They split up into two teams and went to different areas because of the difficulty of walking a long way along the banks of the creek.
There were dozens of volunteers at the cleanup, taking time out of their day to help the City of Arlington.
“I’m here to do my part,” Michael Reynolds, a volunteer from Frisco who was working on the cleanup, said. “It just makes me feel good.”
Volunteers picked up all sorts of trash along the creek bed, including old tires, oil filters and plastic bottles.
“This is ridiculous,” David Heart, another volunteer, said. “We have a beautiful city. Just keep it nice-looking.”
