PORT ANGELES — Saturday turned into a sunny day — at least early on — and a great one to pick up trash in the annual Washington Coast Cleanup.
John Schmidt of Sequim, CoastSavers coordinator, was at Hollywood Beach in downtown Port Angeles with his family sprucing up the sand Saturday morning. He said sprinkles had turned to sunshine from Sequim to LaPush.
Over in Forks
Schmidt said he’d just left two-dozen volunteers lining up to grab trash bags at the Three Rivers fire station in Forks.
With low tide expected at noon, “I think we’re going to collect a lot of garbage today,” he said.
Nearly 1,200 individuals had signed up for the cleanup, Schmidt said.
They worked at 40 sites along the North Olympic Peninsula, from Port Townsend to Dungeness Spit to Hobuck Beach near Neah Bay to Kalaloch in the coastal strip of Olympic National Park.
In April 2014, more than 1,000 volunteers took to the state’s beaches to pick up some 20,000 pounds of debris, Schmidt said.
Free barbecues
Free barbecues for volunteers were planned at Hobuck Beach, Kalaloch Lodge, the Three Rivers Resort, Chito Beach, Lost Resort at Lake Ozette and the Ozette Ranger Station.
The Clallam Bay-Sekiu Chamber of Commerce planned to judge a contest for the most unusual find brought to the chamber’s visitor center on state Highway 112.
In Forks, River and Ocean Days recognized the cleanup with a CoastSavers display, “Bottles, Foam and Rope: Talking Trash on the Washington Coast” at the Rainforest Arts Center, while booths and a free film festival focused on area rivers and the Pacific Ocean.
“There’s just so many individuals and groups and agencies coming together, all these hundreds of volunteers, it’s a great feeling knowing we’re all working together,” Schmidt said.
