Volunteers clear flood debris from Mississippi

Volunteers were out along a stretch of the Mississippi River on Wednesday for a full day of clean up as part of the Department of Natural Resources' Adopt-a-River program.

An area of the river just south of downtown St. Paul was the focus of the work. The location was under 13 feet of water from late June flooding and is an area where debris often collects from up river.

In recent years, the DNR has removed up to 18,000 pounds of trash from the spot.

Floods create more debris that ends up on land, especially in backwater areas, program coordinator Paul Nordell said.

"That location is a very special feature along the river," Nordell said. "It's a low-lying area so when the river goes over its banks it goes into that back woods area and it fills up and as soon as it fills up the river slows up and drops its load."

Volunteers spent the day picking up trash along the river on the south edge of St. Paul near South St. Paul and Newport.

Over 25 years, the DNR program has removed nearly 6.5 million pounds of trash from public waterways around the state.

"With every flood there's more debris that accumulates," Nordell said. "Basically it's a natural filtering mechanism and we're cleaning the filter, that's what we were doing today."