FRESNO, Calif. (KMPH) -
Tons of trash and hundreds of tires - that's what was pulled out of the San Joaquin River.
Volunteers cleaned up a portion of the river Saturday, between Highway 99 and Skaggs Bridge Park - part of a statewide effort, to clear our rivers of potentially dangerous debris.
"It's really gross, it's really disgusting how people just leave their tires out here," said Dominic, a volunteer with the Great Sierra Cleanup.
About 125 volunteers helped out.
The Valley's waterways are the perfect spot to cool off on a hot day.
But it takes an army to clean things up once summer's over.
"It's the end of the season, Skaggs Bridge is used by 1,500 to 2,000 people a day, all summer long," said Mark Somma, a Fresno State Professor who also volunteered.
One by one, high school and college kids fished out nearly 250 tires for the day - no easy feat.
"We almost tipped our boat 5 times trying to pull the tire out of the river, there's parts where we almost sunk and had to pull it along," said Zenfay Li.
The San Joaquin runs 333 miles and is California's second longest river.
It provides water for drinking, crops, power, fishing and other recreational activities.
"People don't realize the ramifications. Bad thing we throw in the river can percolate and show up in our drinking water," said Richard Sloan with the Rivertree volunteer group.
They expect to collect 14 tons of trash and fill four large dumpsters by the end of the weekend.
The clean up didn't just take place in the Central Valley - up and down the state, nearly 3,000 volunteers removed 90,000 pounds of trash, appliances, car parts and other debris from Sierra rivers.
