Coastal Cleanup Day Volunteers Needed Sept. 17

From 9 a.m. to noon Sept. 17, thousands of volunteers will dot 800 different sites in cities and waterways across the state for Coastal Cleanup Day. Organizers call it the single largest volunteer event of the year.

Eight of those sites are within or near Imperial Beach and more than 20 in the Tijuana River watershed, and some sites need more volunteers than others, said Alicia Glassco, Education and Marine Debris Manager with San Diego Coastkeeper.

Only eight volunteers have signed up to help clean near the Dairy Mart Road bridge while Coastkeeper is prepared to work with at least 75 volunteers.

Otay Valley Regional Park also needs volunteers.

"The timing of the event is critical because it's before major winter storms," Glassco said about the Dairy Mart Road bridge site.

"Whatever doesn't get removed from there will be flushed downstream and into the estuary in the first major storm or covered up with sediment," she said.

"Everybody wants to go to the Imperial Beach Pier or the YMCA surf camp because it's on the beach, but there are sites that are just on the other side of town to remove trash that's been there for years."

Cleanups in the Tijuana River valley can also have a potential impact beyond what can be done in a few hours Sept. 17.

"One thing that I like to emphasize about the cleanups, especially with Coastal Cleanup Day, is the data collection aspects."

"So not only are we cleaning up and moving the debris, but we use data to track the amount of debris and we take that data and give it to local decision makers and use that to try and inform policies not only here but south of the border as well," Glassco said.

site last year, placing it high on the list of places where trash was collected across San Diego in 2010.

To register or learn more about Coastal Cleanup Day visit cleanupday.org

20 cleanups will also be conducted in Tijuana as well as in Tecate and Rosarito.

The Coastal Cleanup will precede the Tijuana River Action Month in October.

Locally the event was organized by San Diego Coastkeeper and I Love A Clean San Diego.