Gary Ananian at Kern River Cleanup Saturday. Photos by Catherine Stachowiak
Two entities dedicated to cleaning up areas, surrounding the Kern River, announced at Wednesday’s Kern River Valley Chamber of Commerce meeting their cleanup day, which was last Saturday, September 14.
Gary Ananian, the founder of Kern River Conservancy (KRC) was the first speaker at the meeting Wednesday afternoon. He invited the public to the Kern River Cleanup. He told the Kern Valley Sun, in a text Sunday, “We had 87 volunteers and carried out about 800 pounds of trash.” Ananian also said that all of Keysville was spotless after the cleanup effort.
Ananian told the chamber how he was inspired when visiting over the years, from his hometown Los Angeles, to start river cleanups at the Kern River. Working along side Keepers of the Kern his organization has been doing river cleanups for the past ten years. https://www.facebook.com/KernRiverConservancy/
“As our organization grew our capacity grew and our mission has adapted. We went from picking up trash to also helping with river safety,” he said. His organization works on fire prevention projects. KRC also takes students for outdoors recreational events, fly-fishing, rock climbing and paddle boarding.
About a year ago Kern River Conservancy started a second organization called the Southern Sierra Conservancy, which focuses on the Tule River, the Kaweah River
and the giant Sequoia monument and outreaches to central valley, is outreaching to Portersville, Visalia and Fresno. They do tree planting. Southern Sierra Conservancy is currently seeking funding. https://www.facebook.com/southernsierraconservancy/
Ananian mentioned as a side note that the project he raised funds for, as former Whiskey Flat mayor, the Happy Tails Dog Park in Kernville is waiting for bids from contractors for the project to be completed. Ananian said that his vision, as Kernville Chamber of Commerce vice president, is to revamp the Whiskey Flat Encampment property.
Grants have become more challenging and competitive to attain. “The visitor base is really generous. I would say 90% of our donors and volunteers are from Los Angeles,” he said.
He does not let his volunteers disrupt campers at the campgrounds during cleanups. Ananian sends out teams of organized volunteers to pick up trash and passes out trash bags to messy campers. “We start at Keysville North at the entrance where Slippery Rock is,” he said.
Two weeks ago the KRC did their annual White Water rafting clean up, which they do right after every holiday with a team of twenty volunteers as a joint effort with Forest Service, BLM, and Public Health among others. “This past year we noticed that the number of homeless encampments have tripled,” Ananian said.
Toxins dumped in the river, from waste, is an issue which needs to be solved going forward. And he has had to find a way to pick up tires, shopping carts and tons of illegal dumping, car oil, transmissions, other things that the organization didn’t encounter previously.
Kitt Heilbron, board member for Keepers of the Kern, was speaker that day also. She said she and Amy Nelson have taken over the Keepers of the Kern. They are no longer a 501c3. They have a schedule and would be doing cleanups. They are currently raising money for education purposes. The organization changed its logo. “We really are about clean up efforts,” she said.
The group hopes to get younger people to join. Camp Erwin Owen and the schools have become involved to get students interested in volunteering for the cause. Please see their facebook page to get their calendar at https://www.facebook.com/KeepersoftheKERN/
