Canoe Clean Up Celebrates Ashland SWCD’s 50th Conservation Chat

If community service and time on the river float your boat, Ashland Soil and Water Conservation District (SWCD) has just the event for you: a Canoe Clean Up Conservation Chat on May 10 at the Mohican Adventures Canoe Livery.

The river clean up marks the 50th consecutive monthly Conservation Chat hosted by Ashland SWCD and provides local volunteers to get their hands dirty and feet wet when it comes to cleaning up the Mohican River.

“The foundation of SWCDs like ours is the ideas of helping residents and landowners implement voluntary conservation practices that have an impact when it comes to protecting our soil and water resources,” said Jane Houin, Ashland SWCD director. “Our board was looking for ways to increase that voluntary implementation when we developed our current strategic plan in the fall of 2020, and the consensus from the board was that more people would implement conservation practices if they just understood more about those practices and the impact they can have.”

From there, Houin says the idea of hosting monthly in-person educational events was born, and the district hasn’t looked back.

“When we came up with the idea of hosting monthly Conservation Chats, we were just coming out of the massive COVID shut downs, and our board felt really passionately that there was a lot of value to hosting in-person educational outreach programs and developing personal relationships and connections with community members,” Houin said. “Now that we’re approaching out 50th monthly Conservation Chat, it’s easy to look back and see the growth in our programming over the last 5 years, and our Conservation Chats have played a big part in that growth.”

Here’s a look back at the topics covered during Ashland SWCD’s 50 monthly Conservation Chats to date!

For example, participation in the district’s cover crop program has increased nearly 40 percent, and enrollment in the county’s H2Ohio nutrient management acres is more than double the initial program allotment for the county. Houin credits that growth to the relationships the district has developed with farmers, landowners, local businesses and community leaders.

That community buy-in makes this 50th Conservation Chat a fitting celebration, Houin said, because the Canoe Clean Up Conservation Chat is a chance for community members to come together and have an immediate, hands-on impact.

“We have such a vibrant, river-based tourism economy in the southern part of the county, with visitors coming from all parts of the state and country to enjoy the natural resources we get to enjoy everyday,” Houin said. “This is a great chance to partner with a local business like Mohican Adventures and perform a hands-on community service to clean up physical trash and debris from the river that not only helps the river itself but also helps showcase what makes our community special to visitors.”

Participation in the Canoe Clean Up is free, but pre-registration is required and space is limited. Participants will meet at Mohican Adventures at 9 am, and the livery will provide canoes and transportation to the launch north of Loudonville. Participants will make their way downriver back to Mohican Adventures, cleaning up trash and debris along the way. S

Once back at the livery, Ashland SWCD will provide a pizza lunch along with information about local water quality monitoring by Ohio Scenic Rivers as well as local volunteer water quality testing opportunities with Ashland SWCD.

Registrations can be made online at canoecleanup.eventbrite.com. Additional information is available at the Ashland SWCD office at 110 Cottage Street, Ashland or by calling 419-281-7645.