Another successful creek clean up that wasn’t actually a creek clean up!
The creek was so clean that the group of volunteers decided to spend their time clearing out an invasive species, bastard cabbage, around Alpine Pond. The top photo is a before picture with the bastard cabbage in all its blooming glory. While it is a showy and prolific bloomer (and edible!), it also chokes out many native species, including bluebonnets and other spring wild flowers. The middle picture is two happy volunteers in the midst of the removal filling up the compost bins provided to residents by the City of Austin. That bastard (cabbage) will not go to waste but, instead, will now become Dillo Dirt. The final picture is of the hard-working volunteers (sans photographer) with the results of their efforts to beautify Alpine Pond. Certainly, the pond’s purpose is to filter and clean the rainwater runoff before it flows into the creek, but it is also a lovely green space that attracts all sorts of wildlife, examples of which can be found here, and should be treated with care like all our precious urban green spaces. All in all, it was a great day in the Dawson Neighborhood to continue a decades-long tradition of beautifying our community.
For at least two decades, the Dawson Neighborhood Association has asked the neighborhood to help clean up our section of East Bouldin Creek from Oltorf to Ben White, and for the past few years, we have done it during Clean Sweep. On April 11th, please join Keep Austin Beautiful and your Dawson neighbors for Clean Sweep and help keep our creek beautiful!
Austin’s annual city-wide service day on April 11th where over 4,000 volunteers join together on an ordinary Saturday morning to make an extraordinary difference. After the network of cleanups volunteers are invited to a FREE volunteer party featuring live music, free lunch, door prizes, and fun environmental kids’ activities. Cleanup: 9AM-11AM. Volunteer Party: 11AM-1:30PM.
If you would like to participate in the creek clean up, please go to our Contact Us page and send a message. If you would like more information about this event, go to http://www.keepaustinbeautiful.org/cleansweep.
