As Adriana Cole tiptoed along the mucky shores of the Red Cedar River on Saturday, she spotted a newspaper in the water.
"Eww, it's seeping," she said as she held up the saturated edition.
After placing the paper in a garbage bag, Cole, a chemical engineering sophomore, continued down the shore looking for more trash.
Cole was one of more than 100 helpers who turned out Saturday morning for the Red Cedar Cleanup, an event organized by Friends of the Red Cedar, the Residential Initiative on the Study of the Environment and the Fisheries and Wildlife Club.
Twice a year, volunteers from across campus wade into the river and tread its shores looking for litter, garbage and some everyday items that have been tossed into the water. This is the ninth-consecutive semester for the cleanup.
Packaging junior Raman Agrawal said he's never surprised by the things campus litterbugs throw in the Red Cedar. During last year's cleanup effort, he won a T-shirt for having the "best find."
"I pulled out a plastic bag of excretory material," he said.
This year, volunteers found two couches, a police barricade and 12 bikes. About 80 industrial-sized garbage bags were filled with smaller items.
Volunteers gathered at the Bessey Hall boat launch and embarked by canoe and on foot in either direction along the river. Some groups were transported to the Kellogg Center and to Hagadorn Road where they worked back into campus toward Bessey Hall. Overall, the volunteers covered 2 miles of the waterway.
One group of about 10 people tackled the section of the river considered to be the most polluted - between the bridges at Farm Lane and Bogue Street.
Volunteers recorded their significant finds to compare to lists from previous years.
"Hopefully, we can document how we're changing people's behavior and how it changes from semester to semester," said John Hesse, an adjunct professor for the fisheries and wildlife department. "The river has a bad reputation, but it's really very clean. Students don't realize that, and they need to respect that."
According to last year's statistics, the Red Cedar was fit for swimming 72 percent of the time and good for fishing, canoeing and other activities 84 percent of the time, Hesse said.
Much of the river's pollution comes from on-campus dumping, not bacteria such as E coli.
"When people perceive that it's dirty, they think, 'Why not throw your trash in the river?'" said Karl Rohe, a statistics junior.
Rohe said that clean water is not always clear. A river's mucky appearance can be the result of natural ecosystems at work.
"It's not sludge - it's just the living river," Rohe said.
Despite the vast amounts of garbage dredged from the water Saturday, volunteers said they understand that because of student behavior, keeping the Red Cedar clean is an ongoing chore.
"The amount that gets thrown in from fall to the spring just keeps accumulating," said Jessen Tompkins, a fisheries and wildlife senior. "It's a never-ending process. No matter how much we take out of there, there's always going to be more."
Maggie Bernardi can be reached at bernar41@msu.edu.
