From catfish to cows, Ijams Nature Center cleans out Tennessee River

At the Ned McWherter/Riverside Landing, Jerry Weaver and Molly Vornholt are offloading an unusual collection of finds. Parts of two coolers, half of a wood pallet, an old tire, a toilet seat. And there is a baby doll, but that is kept as a kind of mascot for the boat.

Weaver, an Ijams Nature Center staff member, is employed as a River Captain. Vornholt, an AmeriCorps member, oversees cleanup of the Tennessee River.

“It has been a weird transition after 22 years working as a sales rep for a textbook company,” Weaver said. "I had just started around March 6 before everything closed down.

"Our job is considered essential since part of Ijams’ contract with the City of Knoxville is to keep the KUB intake clear of logs and debris. I used to meet with teachers at my old job. I’m not sure if I would have been working right now if I hadn’t changed jobs.”

The agreement between Ijams Nature Center and the City of Knoxville was recently renewed for another year. Ijams provides trash and debris removal services for the waterways from Forks of the River to the end of Sequoyah Park for an amount not to exceed $41,400 annually. It is a water-quality initiative throughout the city in support of its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System stormwater management program.

Weaver and Vornholt collect and remove litter, trash, debris and other harmful materials from the area waterways. As part of the contract, the city makes available a 24-foot SeaArk aluminum boat.

"It’s an endless job. If you do a great job of making First Creek pristine you feel good, until the next day and it’s there again,” Weaver said. “Fortunately, there is a lot of variety in this job. But, there is no secret – you pick it up one piece at a time; if you are lucky you pick up two or three pieces at a time.”

“You know when you get close to something, you can smell it,” said Vornholt, referring to a 70-pound (and very much dead) blue catfish they discovered recently.

Removing the logs that become entrapped around the KUB intake not only keeps it operational but, it is hoped, prevents geese from building nests on the logs. “We are watching a goose nest with five or so eggs to make sure they don’t go in,” said Vornholt. “We release the logs to allow them to drift downstream.”

Chad Weth, public service director for the City of Knoxville, said this is the fifth year that they have contracted Ijams.

“Third Creek especially seems to get the UT Cumberland traffic and after game days – hopefully we will play again – you see an uptick in litter,” Weth said. “It’s amazing to see what flows out, and when we don’t have rain it doesn’t get collected. The trash just sits and it’s awful and hard to clean.”

Amber Parker, Ijams' executive director, said the river cleanup is just another way they collaborate with the city. “We believe we are better together when we work together; we love to have this opportunity,” she said. “We not only provide cleanup and water intake for KUB, but the contract really helps us provide boots on the ground conversations about water quality, and we use it as an educational outreach program.”

“It’s amazing the things that we pull out,” continued Parker. “We used to see lots of tires and large pieces of debris. We always see a whole lot of plastics and some more disturbing things such as medical needles or a dead cow that got washed downstream.”