Volunteers take to Clackamas in cleanup effort

ON THE CLACKAMAS RIVER, Ore. - The last thing it should be is a dumping ground.
    
But thousands of people use the Clackamas River every summer, and they leave all kinds of trash behind.

So on Sunday more than 300 volunteers came together to clean it up.

"I spend almost every weekend on the river playing, having a good time, so this is my chance to come back and kind of clean up," said volunteer Jim Burton. "There's a lot of trash on the river that works its way down. (We'll) pick it up before it gets down to the ocean."

They found things such as aluminum cans, broken glass bottles and cigarette butts. In the past, crews have found everything from dentures and a bed frame to a live snake in a bottle.

As volunteers floated down a 14-mile stretch of the river Sunday, they dropped off their trash at periodic dump sites.

Organizers said last year volunteers removed 3.2 tons of trash. An estimate of how much was picked up this year was not available Sunday.