Wakulla River:  Help Keep It Beautiful

I would like to help a local ecosystem that is near and dear to my heart.  My name is Ed Walker and I'm writing this to ask for help from all the people that use the Wakulla River.  If you use the river for swimming, boating, fishing, tubing, canoeing or just relaxing and taking in the beauty of the river, I ask you to please take what you brought with you to this wonderful river back home when you leave.  Please take your trash.

I am a native of Homestead, Florida and I have seen first hand what we as people can do to a beautiful ecosystem by leaving our trash behind.  And it's not a pretty sight.  I have walked through the Everglades and seen first hand what we as the barons of this fine land have left for mother nature to see.  I have seen everything from plastic and paper to tires and oil and cars and everything that we disgard laying on the ground and in the water ways. And it made me sick to know that it would not have been this way if that first person had not thrown that first piece of trash down on the ground or in the water.

If that had been the case my hometown area would be so beautiful. You see, I believe that if you took one million people and each one of them threw just one piece of trash in one area it would be considered a dump.  And that is what has happened in my hometown.  There are hundreds and hundreds of dumps around that area.  Just take a drive down a dirt road or look at a flood gate in a canal and you will see them. 

This is why I'm asking the people that use this river to not turn it into a dump.  I have seen first hand people throwing trash into the Wakulla River and it has made me sick again to know that one day, if this keeps going on, we won't be able to see the beauty of the river anymore because the bottom and shore line will be littered with trash.

So I ask, please do as I do.  Take home your trash and if you see some floating by pick it up and take it with you.  If we all do our part to keep this beautiful ecosystem clean we will reap the rewards for years and our children and their children will also be rewarded.  I would like to thank all the people that do as I and take their trash with them.

Thank you so very much.

Edward Walker

This letter originally published on August 30, 2008.

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mkwestmark

 

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