By Sarah Wang | Staff Writer
Beautify the Brazos will take place Friday at the Waco Convention Center, providing citizens with an opportunity to volunteer and create long-lasting impacts that will benefit the environment and Waco residents. The experience will include activities like testing water quality and removing waste from the Brazos River — the critical water source for Waco.
The event is being put on by the City of Waco Watershed Protection and Convention Center, IRONMAN Foundation, Waco Paddle Company, McLennan Community College and Baylor. Keep Waco Beautiful, a nonprofit organization that aims to make Waco a beautiful and sustainable place, is the main host.
According to its website, participants will be trained to collect water samples and conduct various tests to gather data on pH, oxygen, E. coli and other metrics. Attendees will also be removing debris from the river and the area around the riverbank, bringing it back to the shore for proper disposal.
According to Carole Fergusson, executive director of Keep Waco Beautiful, the waste that is collected at the Brazos River is mostly aluminum cans, plastic bottles and styrofoam; however, there are also random items like fire extinguishers, tires and bats.
“The reflection directly impacts not only our natural ecosystem but also preserves this river from carrying waste to the ocean,” Fergusson said. “If we can pull it up here, that means a cleaner ocean.”
Michaela McCown, associate professor of environmental science at McLennan Community College, said the City of Waco and other partners in the area have worked hard to improve water quality in the Bosque and Brazos Rivers in the past decade.
“There are always challenges with maintaining water quality in any body of water that is in close proximity to a metropolitan area, due to the impact of pollution and contaminated stormwater runoff,” McCown said. “That is why Beautify the Brazos and other outreach efforts are so important.”
McCown also said events like these help citizens learn more about local water bodies and realize that all people are responsible for protecting aquatic resources.
The biggest challenge of the project, according to McCown, is coordinating the collection of data from 150 sites all across Waco, which requires a lot of volunteers, supplies and data analysis.
“We’ve had a challenge getting enough volunteers to help sample all of these sites, and we can still use more help,” McCown said.
According to Fergusson, every volunteer hour equates to $30 of economic value for Waco.
“Because of this, every volunteer makes an impactful difference in the community,” Fergusson said.
