Our View: Merced's Bear Creek can use some cleaning

The only silver lining we can see in the drought we're going through is that it dried up Bear Creek enough to show us an urgent chore that needs to be done.

Clean up the creek.

The near-record low levels of rainfall and the drying up of snowmelt for our aquifer have caused one of our prettiest natural scenes to morph into a moonscape. Dead fish, shopping carts, vehicle parts, rusty cans and bewildered ducks can now be seen in the dry terrain of Bear Creek from G Street to Highway 59.

One resident who's lived here since 1972 has never seen the creek this dry -- or this junky.

We urge the city to strike while the creek is dry. Remove the debris while crews can get to it.

That's what a group of about a dozen people did over the weekend. Ben Davidson, Tom Price and the rest of the "Merced County Crawdads" cleanup crew spent three hours in the creek near Applegate Park on Saturday, pulling out shopping carts, tires and even old saw blades.

"We found pretty much everything you can imagine down there," Price said. "We made a dent. It wasn't pristine, but it made a difference."

Davidson set up a Facebook group to recruit new members, and the group plans to meet at the creek and other areas around town around twice a month, Price said.

We encourage residents to follow the Crawdads' example and fill at least one black plastic garbage bag with trash from the creek -- in other words, volunteers need to help in the cleanup.

If only 100 Mercedians tramp down the banks to the sandy, muddy bed and -- wearing gloves -- pick up some of the litter, think of the domino effect it will create.

So while we're waiting for those clouds to finally open up, we've got a golden opportunity. President Reagan told the story about the little boy who rushed downstairs to the Christmas tree and saw a pile of horse manure by it. Immediately he began tearing through the presents. "I know there must be a pony here somewhere!" he said.

Let's turn a negative into a positive.

Let's clean up Bear Creek.

Editorials are the opinion of the Merced Sun-Star editorial board. Members of the editorial board include Publisher Eric Johnston, Executive Editor Mike Tharp, Online Editor Brandon Bowers and Guest Editor Jessica Boerner-Grissom.