The Mill Creek Coalition of Clarion and Jefferson counties is holding its fourth annual Rubber Ducky Race at 1 p.m. Saturday, April 29, at the Fisher-Strattanville Road bridge over Mill Creek.
The purpose of the race is to help raise funds and awareness of efforts to clean up acid mine drainage pollution in the Mill Creek and Little Mill Creek watersheds.
Five hundred raffle tickets, one for each of the numbered little yellow duckies, will be sold and the ticket holders of the winning ducks will receive gift cards for a major retailer. Other gifts provided by local merchants will be raffled off to those attending the race.
Event organizer Pete Dalby said the ducks will be released a few hundred yards upstream of the bridge. Volunteers will follow them down the creek to free any ducks hung up on snags or shallow
water. More volunteers will be posted with nets at the bridge finish line.
Food will be available for purchase at the event. There will also be displays that describe the passive treatment process and the locations of treatment sites.
Parking is available near the bridge and traffic control will be effect.
Raffle tickets are available from Dalby by calling (814) 782-3227 and other members and friends of the coalition including the four watershed townships, Clarion, Millcreek, Union and Eldred.
The Clarion University student chapter of The Wildlife Society is helping the coalition sponsor the event along with a major retailer and its employees. A rain date, if necessary, will be the following Saturday, May 6.
Coalition’s efforts make a difference
Mill Creek and Little Mill Creek were essentially dead 26 years ago when the coalition began working to use passive treatment systems to clean up the low pH (acid) and high levels of iron, manganese and aluminum from the watersheds. The waterways have visually improved as the bright orange iron deposits coating the stream beds have been reduced, according to the coalition. Aquatic life has returned. Trout and other species of fish have been found throughout most of Mill and Little Mill, along with aquatic insects, crayfish and amphibians.
Jones Run and Douglass Run, which enter Mill Creek below its confluence with Little Mill, are still badly polluted, however, the coalition added. They will soon be the targets of current coalition
projects to improve the last six miles of Mill Creek flowing toward the Clarion River.