On a January Saturday, more than 200 volunteers showed up
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| Volunteers gathering for Fish Island's Community Clean Up Day |
to haul out thousands of pounds of trash!
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| A portion of trash picked up on Fish Island's Community Clean Up |
They all got out of bed early on a Saturday morning to attend Fish Island's Community Clean Up Day in St. Augustine. This event was hosted by the
Matanzas Riverkeeper and the
St. Johns Audubon Society.
Fish Island was purchased by the state in November 2019 to save it from development. The state spent $6.5 million in Florida Forever funds to buy the land. Now the 57 acres (located on the eastern edge of the Matanzas River south of the State Road 312 bridge) will be preserved instead of developed.
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| Fish Island (Image by North Florida Land Trust) |
The City of St. Augustine will manage Fish Island as a park with the goal of
keeping it as natural as possible.
But before we can enjoy the park, Fish Island needed some TLC. The Clean Up Day volunteers were divided up into teams and headed up by a group leader.
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| THE Mantanzas Riverkeeper, Jen Lomberk gathering her team to take into the woods |
Equipped with gloves, buckets and trash pickers, each team was assigned an area of the park to clean. Archaeologists from
SAAA (St. Augustine Archaeological Associationj) joined volunteer groups to help identify remnants from 18th century life. (We only want people to pick up the NEW trash! Fish Island's older trash could be artifacts from Jesse Fish's 18th century plantation or from the native peoples who lived there centuries before European Contact).
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| SAAA (St. Augustine Archaeological Association) volunteering at the Fish Island Community Clean Up |
Speaking of trash.... there was A LOT of it! Most was left
behind from years of transient living in the woods. Before the
Community Clean Up Day, a contractor was hired by the City of St Augustine
to clean out what was left behind from more than 30 transient camps. The
contractor estimated that he removed 300-400 cubic yards of trash from the site!
But there was still plenty left behind to keep everyone busy on the clean up day....
Saving Fish Island from development can be attributed in no small part to the Friends of Fish Island sounding the alarm. This group is composed of concerned citizens who made the community aware of Fish Island's historical, archaeological and environmental importance. The Friends of Fish Island exemplifies what a motivated grass roots group can accomplish! Some of the members were recognized at SAAA's November meeting.
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| Friends of Fish Island members being recognized at the SAAA November meeting |
I think that most people can agree that we are all thankful that Fish Island will continue to look like this:
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| Preserved Fish Island (Image from St. Augustine Record) |
instead of this...
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| Development across the road from Fish Island (image from St. Augustine Record) |
For more information on Fish Island
click here.
Text and Images (except where noted) by FPAN Staff; Robbie Boggs
