Las Vegas park cleanup nets 150 pounds of trash on Public Lands Day
Volunteers collected about 150 pounds of trash from a southwest Las Vegas park on Saturday to celebrate Nevada Public Lands Day.
More than 80 people participated in the cleanup organized by the nonprofit Get Outdoors Nevada at Mountain’s Edge Regional Park, 8101 W. Mountains Edge Parkway. Groups of gloved volunteers wandered the park, using orange grabbers to add litter to the growing piles in their buckets.
Rachel Bergren, executive director of Get Outdoors Nevada, said volunteers also focused on picking up microtrash: small pieces of litter that are usually passed over but can harm wildlife when consumed.
“It was a giant pile of trash,” Bergren said following the event.
Bergren said events like Saturday’s are important to draw attention to public parks, especially as outdoor recreation and attendance at state and national parks has increased.
“We’ve learned during the pandemic how important time spent outdoors is to our mental and physical health,” she said.
During a news conference following the cleanup, state Treasurer Zach Conine said Nevada intends to invest money into improving state park facilities that were frequently visited throughout the pandemic, so they will be “available for generations to come.”
“Our public lands are under threat,” Conine said. “They continue to be decimated by climate-fueled weather events — wildfires, droughts, extreme heat waves. We have a responsibility to step up and take action.”
Nevada Division of Outdoor Recreation Administrator Colin Robertson highlighted two recent allocations of federal money that will be used for public lands: a $160,000 grant to create the nation’s first professional recreation-trail-building school in Ely, and more than $3.5 million from the federal Economic Development Administration to “invest in outdoor recreation related projects and initiatives.”
“This is a tremendous investment in Nevada and our state’s outdoor recreation future, especially because of the significant returns these investments provide to local communities,” he said.
Contact Katelyn Newberg at knewberg@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0240. Follow @k_newberg on Twitter.
