Making Mud Creek not so dang muddy (or trashy)!

Mud Creek, the stream that runs through Jackson Park in Henderson- ville, is accurately named as it is mostly brown and it smells bad. Unfortunately the fact that this body of water is muddy is not the river’s fault, but can be partially attributed to the mounds of trash dumped or thrown haphazardly into this delicate ecosystem.

The environmental club at Rugby Middle School in Hendersonville named “The Rugby Rose Team”, along with the WNC Alliance, worked hard on April 12^th to clean up a section of Mud Creek to alleviate the trash problem. This event was sponsored by American Rivers as part of 2008’s National River Cleanup. All in all, we pulled about 12 bags of recycling and 8 bags of trash- which included fast food wrappers, Styrofoam, lost camping gear, fishing lures, tires, bottles galore, t-shirts, broken pottery, pants, tin cans, balls, and several mismatched shoes. (If you are missing any of these items please contact the WNCA office. No, just kidding!)

The Rugby Rose Team (http://rugbyroseteam.com/) is in the process of planning a second river clean-up event at Mud Creek, so if you are interested in getting involved contact Ryan at 258.8737. We would love to have you join us! We would also like to give a special thanks to the staff at Jackson Park for hauling our trash for us, and to Hartwell Carson at Riverlink for loaning us the waders so we would not get wet- or too wet, as it turns out!

Missssssss Metcalf, you look stunning in those waders!