Volunteers to help clean up beaches

The dozen or so volunteers scouring the beaches along Bolivar Peninsula this weekend won't be looking for shells or turtle tracks. They will be on the lookout for litter.

Bolivar Chamber of Commerce volunteers and others are planning to pass out garbage bags on Saturday and Sunday, particularly to large groups or those who may have forgotten one, said Garret Foskit, nuisance abatement officer in the Galveston County Health District.

They're asking people to "put trash in the bag and not on the beach," Foskit said in a telephone interview. 

Also, six 20-cubic-yard garbage containers will dot the peninsula, thanks to a grant obtained by the sheriff's environmental crimes unit, he said.  Four will be along Crystal Beach, one near Port Bolivar and one at Rollover Pass. They will supplement the blue trash barrels already on the beach, Foskit said.

"It's a fact of life," Foskit said of the trash on the beach. "It's the sheer volume of people." A private company handles the garbage service on the peninsula and the amount of trash its employees collect was not available Wednesday. 

Foskit said road crews have been working to clear the seaweed from the beach. "They're trying to get the beaches as clean as possible," he said.

For those heading past Bolivar Peninsula to Galveston, four of the five ferries will be running across the channel, said Capt. John Shaw, deck supervisor for the Bolivar-Galveston Ferry.

The Gibb Gilchrist is out of service, awaiting repairs to the propulsion generators, he said by phone. Hopefully, it will be repaired in time for Monday, he said. "Understand it is a busy weekend and be patient with the line," Shaw said by phone. Shaw said the ferry line picks up between 10 a.m. and noon and after that, plan to wait. Cutting in line is not an option unless the driver has about $500 to spare to pay his or her fine.

For More Information Contact:
Kurt Koopmann
Public Information Officer
Galveston County Health District
(409) 938-2211
kkoopman@gchd.org