Wildcat Guardians keep creek beautiful
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Garry Hill remembers one of his first jobs as a young man was working for a local factory. His job was to pick up trash and old, oily, metal parts from around the plant and then dump them in Wildcat Creek near what is now UCT Park.
A couple of decades later, Hill, who is the long-time leader of the Wildcat Guardians, a non-profit group dedicated to keep the creek clean, participated in the clean-up of the same area as part of one of the first Wildcat Creek clean ups that the City of Kokomo held.
Hill, at a presentation for November's meeting of Kokomo Creation Care at Christ Lutheran Church on Dixon Road, stated, "Somebody got the idea that maybe we should start doing this all the time."
That was the inception of the Wildcat Guardians, a group of local outdoor enthusiasts that saw Wildcat Creek as a beautiful recreational resource in the Central Indiana area.
“The DNR had a program called, ‘Adopt a River,’ and we decided to copy that,” said Hill.
The Guardians divided up Wildcat Creek into 40 sections. Then, individuals who act as coordinators adopt one of the sections.
“They investigate their areas, and if they find out anything is wrong, they report it to the officers of the group," stated Hill.
The group then calls a workday to clean up the affected area. Tires are the biggest thing the group has had to deal with over the years. But many strange things, such as phone booths and car parts, have also been retrieved from the creek.
According to Hill, landowners along the waterway sometimes use their backyard access to the creek to dump their trash into the creek. When the Guardians start talking to those owners, most agree to help with the cleanup and change the way they deal with their refuse. One landowner helped pay for the cleanup and then became a member of the Guardians.
Local manufacturing contamination has had the most negative impact on the creek, but with work from the Guardians and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Hill believes that Wildcat Creek is now one of the cleanest creeks in the state.
Water quality monitoring and DNR checking on wildlife have noted that the creek bed is now supporting life, although the creek has advisory signs about not eating fish caught from the waterway because of cancer-causing PCBs that will take decades to eliminate. But, as Hill stated, it is still a place where families can enjoy canoeing, and in many spots, tubing.
“We take kids out during events in canoes and let them see the creek and see how nice it is,” said Hill.
The Wildcat Guardians are always willing to accept aid from the community, whether through donations or volunteering. For additional information about the Wildcat Guardians, visit www.wildcatguardians.org or the Wildcat Guardians Facebook page.