2022 Flathead Waters Cleanup

The 2022 Flathead Waters Cleanup event returned Saturday, August 13th, 2022. This Flathead Basin-Wide event was hosted by Flathead Rivers Alliance, Flathead Basin Commission, Flathead Conservation District, Flathead Lakers, and Lake County Conservation District and brought together over 210 agency, organization and community member representatives in an all day volunteer event to not only cleanup trash, but celebrate the region’s incredible waterways. Participants removed over 5,100 LBS of trash improving 150 miles of riverbank and lakeshore.

For the event, Flathead Rivers Alliance recruited and coordinated over 90 volunteers who either rafted, scuba dived, snorkeled, or walked the three forks of the Flathead River. Volunteers cleaned up 48 river miles on the North Fork, 59 river miles on the Middle Fork and mainstem of Flathead and 4 river miles on the lower South Fork totaling 111 river miles improved, plus Teepee Lake.

The three forks of the Flathead River system has the significance of inspiring the idea of a National Wild and Scenic Rivers system and contributing 85% of the water entering Flathead Lake. This one day cleanup event is an extension of the cooperative efforts Flathead Rivers Alliance and its agency partners conduct throughout the summer. Glacier National Park and Flathead National Forest run routine River Patrol crews, while the Alliance coordinates volunteer River Ambassador crews that both staff pop-up information booths at popular river access points and serve as citizen scientists collecting river user and wildlife data while floating the river. The Alliance and its agency partners are invested in safeguarding the future of the Flathead River system and developing a new generation of river stewards.

Origin of the Flathead Waters Cleanup Event
Emilie Henry began serving as an AmeriCorps member in 2020 for Flathead Basin Commission and City of Kalispell, organizing a local cleanup event was written into her work plan with a modest goal of recruiting 20 volunteers to improve 1 mile of riverbank. A partnership with the Flathead Conservation District took the event to the next level, and it snowballed from there, involving many other partners across the watershed to make the event what it is today. “It is humbling and incredibly inspiring to provide a community that is already so dedicated to the preservation of beautiful natural spaces with an opportunity to come together around a common goal. A big part of the event is about removing trash from natural areas, but an even bigger part is fostering a sense of empowerment within the community to do what they can to protect the Flathead’s natural resources for generations to come – and that’s the legacy I hope this event leaves,” says Henry.