The Red Cedar River is not the "Dead Cedar" anymore, Shawn Mullaly said.
"People think that our river is dirty and full of E. coli," the park, recreation and tourism senior said.
"But it really has no more pollution now than many other bodies of water that people swim in."
Mullaly, who is a member of the environmental group Friends of the Red Cedar, helped organize a cleanup of MSU's river on Saturday.
The water's cleanliness is improving, he said.
"We're trying to change the image and make it better," Mullaly said.
Efforts to clean the river are working, said Geoffrey Habron, an assistant professor of fisheries and wildlife and sociology.
Habron works on the MSU-WATER project, an initiative to research the condition of the river.
In 2001, two Ingham County Health Department samples of the river's water showed average E. coli colony counts per milliliter of water at 603 and 560 - about double the state's guideline.
There's still a lot of work to be done, Habron said.
"There's still trash when you take the time to look," he said.
Habron added efforts such as the fall and spring cleanups of the Red Cedar certainly help with the problem of pollution and keeping the approximate 20 species of marine life in the water alive.
He has been part of the river cleanup since 1999 when the Friends of the Red Cedar took over the job from the Fisheries and Wildlife Club.
The event drew more than 100 people to the banks of the river - more than fisheries and wildlife senior Karla Clark has ever seen at a cleanup in the three years she's coordinated the event.
"It's great to see that this many people care enough to volunteer," she said. "We'd hope to have this much success in the future."
Jason Wengert crawled on his hands and knees through dead leaves, dirt and shrubbery to free the river banks from potato chip bags and other garbage.
This is the physics sophomore's second semester doing the cleanup, and he still laughs when finding things ranging from student IDs to couches beneath the surface of the water.
"All this still makes you wonder what people are thinking when they throw some of this stuff in the river," he said.
