Oak Harbor couple honored for restoring Freund Marsh after massive cleanup

Greg and Lynn Goebel turned one abandoned encampment cleanup into a full-scale restoration of Freund Marsh, hauling away five truckloads of trash and debris from eight separate spots in Oak Harbor before the city publicly honored them for it.

At Tuesday’s Oak Harbor City Council meeting, Mayor Ronnie Wright presented the couple with a We See You Award, recognizing work that cleared a public marsh many residents know from the walking route between Scenic Heights Road and the Oak Harbor Marina. What the Goebels found was more than a scattering of litter. Cardboard, plastic crates, water bottles, wet clothing, foil wrappings, children’s toys, needles and other debris had been strewn through the area and hung from trees, making the marsh look neglected and, in some places, unsafe.

Greg Goebel said a friend’s concern about the paths feeling unsafe pushed him to act, and he checked with the Oak Harbor Police Department before starting the cleanup. The effort began in February as a plan to remove trash from one abandoned site, but once the couple got into the marsh, the scale of the problem became clear. They returned for a second workday with help from their son-in-law, Skip Dickinson, and their friend Joel Servatius, then kept going until they had cleared eight locations.

The trash came out in the Goebels’ Toyota Tundra and ended up at the Coupeville Transfer Station, a task made heavier by the volume and by the mix of material that included potentially hazardous items such as needles. Island County charges additional fees for uncovered or unsecured loads, and the county says household hazardous waste can be dropped off free at its solid-waste facilities, with larger moderate-risk loads accepted by appointment in Coupeville. That backdrop makes the five-truckload haul a real volunteer undertaking, not a casual weekend pickup.

Freund Marsh has long carried broader significance in Oak Harbor. Island County approved Conservation Futures funding for the marsh acquisition in August 2023, valuing the project at $582,490 for three parcels totaling just under four acres. County officials said the goal was to preserve public access and protect the waterfront property from development, though the funding later sat in limbo while the city had not yet accepted the dollars. The site has also shown up repeatedly in local cleanup efforts, including a 2019 trash pickup, and earlier reporting described the Freund family homestead area west of Safeway as one of the last large stretches of green space in city limits, a place where camping and refuse dumping had worsened over time.

By honoring the Goebels, Oak Harbor did more than hand out a plaque. The city put a visible example on the record: two neighbors, one marsh, eight cleanup sites, five truckloads removed, and a public space made usable again.