College Creek has parking tickets.

It also has some candy bar wrappers and other disposable packages.

The creek has a lot of other trash in it as well, but with any luck, it will all be removed by the end of the weekend.

Five student organizations are combining efforts Sunday to rid College Creek of the garbage. Members of the Soil and Water Conservation Club, Student Environmental Council, Agronomy Club, Pheasants Forever and the Skunk River Navy will take part in a clean-up day at 1 p.m.

Volunteers from the groups will split into two groups. One group will work move toward Central Campus, while the other will work toward Elwood Drive.

Bradley Miller, president of Soil and Water Conservation Society Student chapter, said efforts to keep the environment clean should be taken seriously by all students.

“We are cleaning up the environment we all live in,” he said. “We drink the water and depend on it. We need to live in a place where the ecology is healthy because it’s something that benefits everyone.”

Miller said he has two main goals for the group – to do general community service and to raise awareness among the campus about water issues.

“This is something that students of Iowa State need to pay attention to,” he said. “This is their water.”

Jim Colbert, associate professor of botany who works with Skunk River Navy, said making the campus look nice isn’t the only issue involved in the clean up.

“We really want to raise awareness about water issues,” Colbert said. “Ames has problems with quantity of water, sedimentation of streams and chemical pollutants being put into the water.”

Colbert said these problems may not sound like a big deal to students, but if students take a step back they will realize these rivers and creeks are where we get our water. Also, many other organisms use College Creek as their habitat.

“We don’t live here by ourselves either,” Colbert said. “We need to respect our surroundings because organisms depend on that water to survive.”

Campus Services busier than usual

by Kathy Summy

Special to the Daily

Spring cleaning is more than a clich‚ when it comes to ISU grounds. Litter on campus has become an increasing problem on campus during recent months.

“Normally students do an excellent job of taking care of [litter on campus],” said Dennis Erickson, manager of campus services. “It has been worse this year for some reason.”

Campus Services, a division of Facilities Planning and Management, maintains almost 2,000 acres of university grounds. It manages such tasks as snow removal, recycling services, pest control and refuse removal.

“It has been a windy spring and was an open winter, so more [litter] showed instead of being covered up by snow,” Erickson said.

Mounting problems with litter have kept Campus Services more busy than usual this year. Campus Services has more than 300 receptacles located around campus for waste, but staff members still have to pick up trash.

“On a non-routine basis, we try and go out and pick up the litter,” Erickson said.

One to five staff members generally clear the campus’ litter, depending on what time each has available during the work day. “We also use the lawn sweeper when it is really bad,” he said.

“I pick up a lot of paper each time I walk across campus,” Erickson said. “I wish we could do something about it so the money could be spent elsewhere, but it is there, so we need to take care of it.”

Erickson said litter is especially problematic from Osborn Drive through the main part of campus. Areas such as the Towers Residence Association can also become heavily littered at times, mainly due to high winds.

“Students don’t think about it too much,” said Jesse Holland, president of Student Environmental Council. “They think because of tuition, it’s just taken care of by the university.”

Students generally rely on others to clean the campus, such as organizations that organize service projects, Erickson said. Holland, senior in environmental science, said litter on campus is not an issue students should ignore.

“It’s socially irresponsible when people don’t care about their environment,” Holland said.