Essential Estrogen

While this isn't necessarily political, it's important! While reading through today's Des Moines Register I came across this article on Project AWARE. Contained within was the following information:

On the Turkey and Wapsipinicon, the Raccoon and South Skunk, on the Iowa and Boone and Missouri rivers, Iowans took their nearby streams into their own hands, putting on gloves and leaping into the muck. "It's hard to describe the magic that goes on. There is a special breed of person that really cares about the environment," said KJ Rebarcak of rural Long Grove, who participated in last year's AWARE. Rebarcak was so inspired that along with friend Melisa Petersen she organized their own cleanup on the Wapsipinicon in Clinton County. She floated the same stretch of the river on her first paddling trip with Petersen five years ago and found it offered her peace, something you can't measure with hard figures. She could measure this: Last summer, 25 volunteers pulled an astounding 11,592 pounds of trash out of 22 Wapsi river miles.

We applaud Rebarcak, Petersen and all the wonderful volunteers who are caring for Iowa's environment!

During a recent survey hired out by the Legislature's Sustainable Natural Resource Funding Advisory Committee, 800 Iowans ranked pollution of rivers, lakes and streams as their number two priority. (The top slot went to lack of affordable healthcare.) While some are just beginning to understand the importance of Iowa's lands and rivers being clean, other Iowan's began doing something about it more than five years ago. That's when Project AWARE began with 35 hearty volunteers. This incentive will continue this year on the Raccoon River. More information is available by clicking the logo to the right or the link above.