BIG TUJUNGA CANYON : Volunteers Needed for Litter Pickup

College students and inner-city youths will team up Saturday to clean up Big Tujunga Canyon in the Angeles National Forest, and more volunteers are wanted.

About 170 volunteers, including about 130 UCLA students, will be picking up trash Saturday morning, said Scott Mathes, executive director of the California Environmental Project.

Ten to 15 “Eco-Team” members, trained and paid by a special joint program between Mathes’ group, the U.S. Forestry Service and Los Angeles Conservation Corps will also take part in the cleanup. Team members, most of them inner-city youths, ask park users not to litter.

Eco-Team members, some of whom speak Spanish, have helped forestry officials reach out to gang members and new arrivals to the United States who are unfamiliar with anti-littering laws, forestry officials say.

Forestry officials say the personal approach is more effective than merely posting notices.

“We do know there are a lot of people who visit that canyon who are recent immigrants to the U.S.,” Mathes said. In their home countries, sanitation facilities may be lacking and a common practice is to simply throw garbage on the streets, Mathes said.

Eco-Team members are paid a stipend of $30 a day, or up to $80 if they become a team supervisor.

The volunteer cleanup crews have not had the training of Eco-Team members and do not approach visitors, but may offer a plastic bag for picnickers to clean up their sites.

“We’ve had kids from some of the local schools as young as the second grade to just local residents in the Tujunga-Sunland area who are just tired of seeing the mess help clean up,” said Julie Molzahnm, a forestry recreation officer.

But even the friendly reminder from the Eco-Teams and the work of the volunteers does not always inspire cooperation from visitors, Mathes said.

“Some people don’t like to be told what to do regardless of how they’re told,” Mathes said.

To volunteer to clean up the canyon or join the Eco-Team call the California Environmental Project at 818-500-1025. Both groups will begin at the mouth of Big Tujunga Canyon at 10 a.m. Saturday.