Fall Beach and Riverside Cleanup Date: September 29 It Returns to Oregon Coast
Published 07/31/2018 at 4:41 PM PDT
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff
(Oregon Coast) – Soon it will again be time to clean up the Oregon coast. Volunteer organization SOLVE this week announced the date for its Fall Beach & Riverside Cleanup: September 29.
Right smack in the middle of the famed Second Summer – the time when the Oregon coast experiences its best weather of the year – thousands of volunteers will mobilize from around the state and beyond to scour these beaches of trash and debris. Over 300 miles of sand will get cleaned, which includes invasive plants. Rivers and some city streets will also get a scrubbing, as officials worry about the fall rains washing litter and debris into storm drains and then out to sea.
The event takes place that Saturday from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., although times may vary at some work sites.
The Beach & Riverside Cleanups have been going for almost four decades now. Started in 1984, over 130,000 volunteers have removed an astounding 1.7 million pounds of litter and marine debris from project sites across Oregon. This fall event is an annual affair – a family-friendly festival that is part of the International Coastal Cleanup and National Public Lands Day.
It’s actually the second such event of the year: there is also the massive spring beach cleanup every March.
SOLVE’s Beach & Riverside Cleanup includes over 100 hands-on volunteer litter cleanup and restoration events across the state, including 45 beach cleanup sites along the entirety of the Oregon coast.
The SOLVE beach cleanups have been around since 1984, with the organization first going by S.O.L.V (for Stop Oregon Litter and Vandalism), and then simply shortening the acronym to SOLV. In recent recent years it added the E for the new and more direct name of SOLVE.
Over those three decades, over 250,000 volunteers have removed an astounding 3.5 million pounds of debris from Oregon's beaches. This debris comes in many forms: from the single bottle cap littered on the beach to a thousand-pound commercial fishing net. One recent study published in the journal Science indicates that the entire ocean system of the world gets about eight million tons of plastic dumped into it each year. This number is on the rise, scientists say, and the impacts on the ocean, coastlines and marine life are getting worse.
"Thousands of pounds of marine debris both from Oregon and across the Pacific basin wash ashore on our iconic beaches each year, threatening the health of our wildlife and coastal communities," said a SOLVE spokesperson back in 2017. "While this is a worldwide problem, local citizens have the power to make a difference here on our own shores."
For those participating, you'll want to come prepared. Dress with the weather in mind – which could mean rain, wind, sun or all three interchanging. Organizers say you'll need sturdy shoes. All cleanup supplies will be provided. Volunteers who would like to help make the event more sustainable are encouraged to bring their own reusable bucket and work gloves. The most common items found during this event are broken pieces of plastic and cigarette butts, which are harmful to local wildlife. Bring an old colander to sift the tide lines for these tiny pieces.
Visit solveoregon.org or call SOLVE at 503-844-9571 ext 332, or 1-800-333-7658 to get more details, pick your project, and sign up. Oregon Coast Lodgings for this event - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours
About Second Summer on the Oregon Coast
September and early October feature the best weather of the entire year on these beaches, coming up with a lot of nice stretches of sunny and windless days in the 60s and 70s
You need only to look at the first half of September to see plenty of 70-degree days on the Oregon coast. This second summer phenomenon usually goes well into the middle of October, and then conditions begin turning towards more blustery days. However, about 50 percent of the time, some nice runs of warm weather still appear in the final two weeks of October.
The science behind it is interesting, and it begins with the summer season having heated up the ocean by this time. This exerts a stronger warming influence on the surrounding air. Then, the temperature differences between inland Oregon and the coast are not as pronounced, which allows more easterly and southerly winds to come in – thus warming things up even more.
These conditions help produce less upwelling from the ocean, which brings the wind factor down even further. All of this combines to create the second summer phenomenon from September through October.
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