The first weekend of our 2026 watershed cleanup season starts Saturday, and registration is open for every event on the spring calendar. If you have volunteered with us before, welcome back. If this is your first year, a quick note: these events are low-barrier, genuinely useful, and structured to be accessible to first-timers. You do not need experience, equipment, or stamina to contribute.
Here is what is happening this spring, and a few things that are different from previous years.
The 2026 Spring Schedule
April 4 — Johnson Creek, Leach Botanical Garden (meet 9:00 a.m.). A long-running partnership with Friends of Johnson Creek. Focus on bank stabilization and invasive removal alongside trash pickup.
April 11 — Columbia Slough, Whitaker Ponds (meet 9:30 a.m.). Canoe-accessible cleanup. We have seven boats; reserve one at registration if you want water access.
April 12 — Tryon Creek, SW Terwilliger access (meet 10:00 a.m.). Tryon Creek Watershed Council is leading; we are the coordinating community partner.
April 18 — Fanno Creek, Greenway Park (meet 9:00 a.m.). Our largest annual event by headcount. Expect 200+ volunteers. Family-friendly.
April 19 — Crystal Springs Creek, Reed College reach (meet 10:00 a.m.). Focus on aquatic invasive plant survey in addition to trash recovery.
April 25 — Willamette River, Sellwood Riverfront Park (meet 9:00 a.m.). Coordinated with Willamette Riverkeeper. River-adjacent cleanup, not in-water.
April 26 — Kellogg Creek, Milwaukie (meet 10:00 a.m.). New event this year, in partnership with North Clackamas Parks and Recreation District.
May 2, May 9, May 16, May 23, May 30, June 6 — rolling events. Full details on the Events page.
Registration for all events is free. Each includes gloves, bags, and a safety briefing on arrival.
What to Bring
- Closed-toe shoes or rubber boots. Several sites are muddy this time of year.
- Long pants and long sleeves, even if it is warm. Blackberry and nettle are in most of our cleanup corridors.
- A reusable water bottle.
- A hat and sunscreen. Even overcast April mornings can do sneaky UV damage during a four-hour outdoor block.
We provide gloves, grabbers, bags, and first aid. If you have your own work gloves you prefer, bring them.
New This Year: A Better Tracking Protocol
For the past three seasons, we have been piloting a standardized debris tracking protocol developed with Ocean Conservancy and adapted for freshwater sites. This year, we are rolling it out across every event.
Volunteers will have the option of logging recovered debris by category (plastic fragments, textiles, glass, organics, metal, and a handful of subcategories) using a short tablet-based form. The data rolls up into a regional dashboard we publish quarterly.
This matters because the story of what is in our waterways is different when it is quantified than when it is narrated. A photograph of a shopping cart pulled from a creek is memorable. A three-year dataset showing that single-use plastic beverage containers make up 31 percent of debris by count in our watersheds is actionable. Both have their place. We are trying to build more of the second.
Participation in the tracking protocol is optional. If you prefer to just pick up trash and enjoy the morning, we absolutely welcome that. If you want to spend part of the event logging data, we will train you in about 20 minutes on site.
What We Are Watching For This Spring
Two things specifically stand out heading into this season.
Microplastics below the waterline. Our surface debris counts have been steady for several years, but our downstream sampling (run by the research team) has shown rising microplastic concentrations every year since 2022. Surface cleanups do not directly address microplastics, but they do prevent future fragmentation of larger items. We are paying closer attention to where we are finding beverage containers and single-use packaging, which are the most common precursors.
Invasive vegetation after a mild winter. This winter was warmer than the 1991–2020 average across our entire watershed. Invasive species, particularly Himalayan blackberry and reed canarygrass, got a substantial head start this year. Several of our April events include optional invasive survey work to help our restoration crews know where to focus.
For Groups and Schools
A few of our events can host school groups or workplace volunteer teams with some advance coordination. If you are bringing 10 or more people, please contact our volunteer coordinator at least two weeks out so we can make sure the site can accommodate the group safely and that we have enough gloves and grabbers on hand.
Corporate groups: if your employer offers volunteer time off, we are happy to provide verification of hours. A growing number of our volunteers are logging employer-matched hours, and we want to make that easy.
One Last Thing
A morning spent pulling trash from a creek is a very tangible way to be in a place. You leave with muddy boots, a reasonable number of scrapes, and the concrete experience of having made something better. That is a rarer kind of afternoon than it used to be.
We hope to see you at one of the April events. If you cannot make it this month, the schedule runs through early June, and our fall cleanup season starts again in September. There is time.
