SEPTEMBER 23, 2016
THE BROWNSVILLE HERALD
Everyone wants to walk along and relax at a clean beach. Nobody wants to see water bottles, fast food bags, paper, beer cans and plastic baggies among other items laying in the beautiful, soft white sand along the coastline of Texas.
That’s one reason volunteers will be headed to 30 beach sites all around the Texas coast, including South Padre Island on Saturday to help pick up trash as part of the Adopt-A-Beach Fall Cleanup. “Sign up now to join forces with thousands of other Texans who care about the coast,” said Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush in a statement. “Marine debris kills wildlife and hurts tourism, but it’s a problem we can fix together. Come out and be a part of the solution on Saturday, Sept. 24.”
Called by the Texas General Land Office as the biggest all volunteer cleanup, there are two sites on the island and one at Boca Chica beach in which volunteers will be headed.
As of Thursday, the event was still on, but government officia s are keeping an eye on the red tide conditions. They will post any updates to social media, including Twitter and Facebook. The cleanup is typically held rain or shine, but may be cancelled if there are storm conditions or issues with red tide.
The Texas Adopt-A-Beach program started in the fall of 1986 when 2,800 volunteers picked up 124 tons of trash. Since that first year, nearly 500,000 volunteers have removed 9,200 tons of trash from Texas beaches.
-Raul Garcia
