Goleta’s Polluted Creeks Cleared of Trash

Car batteries, cigarette butts, spray paint cans, plastic bags and bottles, golf balls, abandoned encampments, tires, and shopping carts ranked prominently among more than 3,700 pounds of trashed hauled from ten Goleta waterways as volunteer crews wrapped up creek cleanup efforts late last month.

Spearheaded by the Environmental Defense Center, small teams started this summer at Devereux Creek, near Coal Oil Point, the project’s westernmost waterway. Atascadero Creek, which forms near San Marcos Pass Road marked its eastern range.

In between, near Goleta Valley Junior High School, where Las Vegas Creek runs beneath a bridge at Stow Canyon Road, cleanup crews bagged up lots of candy wrappers, soda bottles, empty lighters, and discarded homework assignments.

Downstream, where Las Vegas connects with San Pedro Creek behind the Super 8 Motel at Fairview and Hollister avenues, they picked up “what seemed like thousands of cigarette butts,” according to the EDC’s Brian Trautwein, who has since asked Goleta city officials to install an appropriate receptacle at the location.

Crews also picked up 270 golf balls from San Pedro Creek where it passes by Twin Lakes Golf Course, down from last year’s haul of 400.