Volunteers invited to Gateway Park river cleanup Saturday

Litter along the Colorado River can do real damage in Yuma: it dulls the downtown riverfront, cuts into Gateway Park’s usability and chips away at a stretch Visit Yuma describes as a year-round recreation draw. That is why Friends of the Lower Colorado River is turning Saturday’s cleanup into a focused effort on one of the city’s most visible public spaces.

Volunteers are set to arrive at 6:30 a.m. on Saturday, May 30, with check-in at 7 a.m. at Gateway Park in downtown Yuma. Organizers plan two cleanup efforts from there, with one group heading to the California side of the river and another staying at Gateway Park. Cleanup supplies and water will be provided, and Visit Yuma is sponsoring coffee and donuts for participants.

The work extends beyond one park boundary. Arizona Game and Fish says the Yuma East Wetlands include a 2.5-mile walking trail through restored cottonwood, willow and mesquite habitat along the Colorado River and back channel, with Gateway Park located at 1st Street in downtown Yuma and the trail beginning at the eastern edge of the park at Gila Street and 1st Street. For families, walkers and visitors, trash on that corridor can change how inviting the area feels before they ever reach the water.

Friends of the Lower Colorado River said it will work with the Quechan community to clean heavily used parts of the river corridor. That partnership matters in a place where the Fort Yuma Quechan Reservation runs along both sides of the Colorado River near Yuma and borders Arizona, California and Baja California, Mexico. The Quechan Tribe says its environmental department tests the river quarterly for contaminants under a Clean Water Act Water Pollution grant and uses a Non-Point Source Program to clear salt cedar, an invasive tree that can crowd out native vegetation.

David Sanchez of Friends of the Lower Colorado River said the river is central to the community and needs help, and he urged people to take their trash with them when they leave a riverbank or park area and there is no bin nearby. The group has been building that message with repeated cleanup days. In March, volunteers met at Pacific Avenue Athletic Complex and caravanned to the Gila River Confluence, and other local groups, including Scout troops 8051 and 8054 and the Castle Dome Chapter, joined a Colorado River cleanup on May 3.

For Yuma County, the stakes are practical as much as environmental. A cleaner riverfront helps protect a place residents use every day and a landscape that helps sell Yuma to visitors.