Not your average river clean up
Elmer Mattila overlooking one of many large metal items that litter the South Fork of the Coeur d'Alene River in Wallace. Mattila hopes to have the river clean of all debris come next fall.
Photo by CHELSEA NEWBY
Items such as metal waste, reinforcement steel and wire cables, are just some of the objects Mattila expects to be pulled from the water next year.
WALLACE — “It’s not garbage. It’s not trash or plastic bottles and cans.”
Councilman Elmer Mattila spoke to the Wallace City Council last week about his vision to see the Wallace stretch of the South Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River clean for the first time in more than a century.
Mattila explained that this would not be a typical cleanup job, as in place of cans, bottles and other trash, this particular stretch of the South Fork is littered with thousands of pounds of metal.
“It’s all pretty much all heavy, industrial type of metal that was either thrown in or dropped in during the days when the stream was considered to be Lead Creek and you couldn't even see the bottom or what was in the water,” he said. “I think most of it has been here since the early 1900s.”
Mattila said that he regularly walks both the Heritage Trail, as well as the new Front Street sidewalk along the river, and has been bothered by its condition for quite some time.
“I kept walking by thinking, ‘someone needs to do something about all of this,” he said. “Then finally I thought, I’m on the city council, so why don’t I try to do something about it?”
Although he wants to see the whole community get involved, ridding the river of so many massive pieces of metal is going to take more than just manpower, according to Mattila.
He plans to reach out to the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) and Shoshone Board of County Commissioners (BOCC), to gain their support and possibly resources, but said first, he and a group of volunteers will be walking along the river to get an inventory of what is all in it and what equipment they will need to get it out.
“When the time comes, we will be looking for volunteers,” Mattila said. “We will be looking for any local group or rotary club that would like to help us out. We’re going to need heavy machinery to pull most of that out of there. If anybody right now would look ahead to next year and would like to be involved in helping us clean up that section of the South Fork of the Coeur d’Alene River, I would love to know their name and get their information.”
Mattila looks to have the cleanup organized and ready to go by early fall of next year, when the weather is nice, but the water level is low.
If you are interested in helping with the South Fork cleanup project, please contact Elmer Mattila at emattila48@gmail.com.
