Since Sept. 1, a group of volunteers have been working on removing that debris and hauling it away to provide a cleaner beach experience for residents and visitors alike.

Jeff Welch has been walking his dog along that shoreline for the past five years, and he finally got tired of looking at the black debris, which he said has been ebbing and flowing onto the shoreline since Alpena’s lumbering days.

“I walk this beach three times a day with my dog,” Welch said. “For the last five years, I’ve looked at it, and I’m going, ‘What a mess!'”

He checked with the City of Alpena to see if he could start a volunteer beach cleanup project, and that’s when he found out that fellow concerned resident Eric Peterson had been asking about it, too.

News Photo by Darby Hinkley Volunteer Jeff Welch talks about the beach cleanup efforts he and Eric Peterson started on Sept. 1, with the help of a group of dedicated volunteers.

“Eric got a hold of me, and he had the same idea,” Welch said. “He just didn’t know where to start.”

So, the pair teamed up, and Welch got a group of 11 volunteers involved in the cleanup.

“It’s been a good deal,” Welch said.

As of Tuesday morning, Welch said the group has collected, loaded, and hauled away 25,000 pounds of black wood chips, seaweed, and debris that had been an eyesore along the shoreline.

“I had originally talked to Kevin Fisher, who is the parks and rec guy for the city, about how to clean up this debris out of here, and what we do about the beaches — how do we keep them clean, and how we need to really organize ourselves to have our natural resources looking their best and sharpest,” Peterson said on Tuesday morning while scooping debris into a pile near the Blair Street Park Pier.

News Photo by Darby Hinkley Sometimes, it pays to be a volunteer. Eric Peterson and Dave Szydlowski hold up a dollar bill, one of two that Szydlowski found while cleaning up the beach.

Peterson said with the Viking cruise ships coming in, as well as many other tourists in the area during the summer, it’s imperative to both the economy and the environment to do our best to keep the beaches free of debris.

“If there’s anything we need to maintain, it’s our natural resources, because that’s what we’re known here for, and that’s our tourism,” Peterson said. “We really need to put that at the forefront and recognize what we’re doing here. Having sawdust in the lake that’s 170 years old, and nobody’s decided to do anything about it in 170 years? Let’s get on this.”

Welch and Peterson said the city was aware of the issue, but they did not have the manpower available to head up the project, and they are supportive of the volunteer group’s efforts.

Peterson said the debris is hauled away on a trailer to be composted.

“We can clean it up, no problem, and we should,” Peterson said. “Now is the time to take care of that stuff before it becomes some sort of problem. If we get bacteria and stuff growing in here, then that’s a real problem.”

News Photo by Darby Hinkley Volunteer Eric Peterson removes lumbering debris on Tuesday morning from the Lake Huron shoreline near the Blair Street Park Pier in Alpena.

He said climate change has affected our natural resources, and we should be cognizant of that.

“The fact that we’re not getting as cold of winters to kill off some of that bacteria, we should be really concerned, especially with how shallow the bay is,” Peterson said of Thunder Bay. “It’ll be a cesspool if we let it go too long. It’s very important to be on top of it. Our natural resources are a fundamental reason why people want to come here.”

Welch recalled a conversation he overheard between a child and his mother visiting Alpena from Ohio.

“There was a family up here from Ohio — a mother and two kids — they were walking back to the car,” Welch recalled. “I know they were from Ohio because I saw the Ohio plates. I heard the 10-year-old say to his mom, ‘Hey Mom, these people swim in sewage!’ And that’s what it looks like, it’s black. It looks like sewage. So, I went up to them and said, ‘No, it’s not sewage. It’s bark from the lumbering days.'”

Welch said the black wood chips reach the shoreline when the weather is calm, then, if they are not cleaned up, they are washed back out into the lake when the wind picks up. That’s why the water seems more clear when you can see whitecaps. So, the same wood chips and debris have been washing up to the shoreline for years.

News Photo by Darby Hinkley Lumbering debris washes ashore when the weather is calm, and washes back out when the wind picks up. Here, you can see the black debris reaching shore at Starlite Beach.

“The underwater current is actually moving the stuff,” Welch said. “Heavy waves, it goes out. No waves, it comes in … If we don’t take care of it, it’ll go back out and repeat.”

Since the cleanup began on Sept. 1, the water is noticeably clearer, Welch said.

“That water has not been that clear in five years,” he said on Tuesday morning while helping with the beach cleanup.

He described the process of raking and shoveling the debris into a murky pile, to be hauled away with a trailer.

“That stuff is so thick, it’s like slurry,” Welch said on Tuesday. “That’s what this used to be like, just two weeks ago.”

Courtesy Photo More debris is seen on the floor of Lake Huron in this photo taken looking out at the Blair Street Park Pier.

Welch said since the cleanup began, they’ve hauled out 10 trailers full of debris, at 2,500 pounds apiece.

“We let it dry for a couple of days, the water will drain out of it,” he explained.

He added that the progress is noticeable already.

“The good news is, there isn’t much more of it left,” Welch said of the unsightly debris.

He said they have extended cleanup efforts to Mich-e-ke-wis Park, just south of Starlite Beach, and they plan to tackle the shoreline at Bay View Park, which needs a lot of time and attention, as well.

“Now, we’re looking at Bay View,” Welch said. “And Bay View is a real mess. It’s going to take big machinery to do Bay View, but it’s got to be done.”

He recalled when he first decided to do the cleanup.

“So, I’m walking with Sandy one day in June, here,” Welch said, referring to his wife. “And I said, ‘I think I can clean this up.’ And she looked right at me and said, ‘You’re crazy.’ And, that emboldened me to do it. It was a challenge. So, I just put out feelers to friends like Dave (Szydlowski) and Eric (Cornish), people I know that have a community interest, and we need more. We need more help.”

So far, volunteers involved in the project include Welch and his wife Sandy, Peterson, Szydlowski, Cornish, Daryl Beyer, Dennis Werblow, Josh Weisfeld, Tom Bennett, Tom Dowd, and Wayne Lewis.

Welch encourages people of all ages to reach out to him if they want to help. If you would like to get involved with this project, contact Welch via email at jeffwelch2426@gmail.com.

“It’s unsightly,” Welch added. “We’ve got these cruise ships coming in, with people from all over the world … It’s about time to clean it up.”

He echoed Peterson’s sentiments about protecting our natural resources.

“The beaches are irreplaceable,” Welch said. “We’ve got to take care of them.”

He said the main reason the group is doing it is “because it’s the right thing to do.”

Reach Darby Hinkley at dhinkley@thealpenanews.com, or call 989-358-5691.

Courtesy Photo Black debris is seen in the water in this photo taken from the Blair Street Park Pier.

Courtesy Photo A trailer full of lumbering chips mixed with seaweed and other debris is seen along the shoreline of Lake Huron near Blair Street Park Pier.

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