Keep ULM Beautiful hosted Ouachita Green’s annual water sweep on Sep. 14. The water sweep gathered participants to remove trash from Bayou Desiard to preserve the bayou’s beauty and wildlife.
This year’s water sweep featured over 165 participants, an increase from last year. As a result, the participants cleared over 220 pounds of trash from the bayou.
Junior toxicology major Ella Guillot explained why she took part in the water sweep.
“The bayou is such a central part of our campus and attracts so many students that I think having it clean and looking nice is important for the community that we have at ULM,” Guillot said.
Besides beautifying campus, the water sweep focused on saving the local ecosystem. Biology instructor Timothy McMahan described the importance of maintaining Bayou Desiard.
“As biologists, we know and we actually study in one of our labs the effect of pollution on the bayou ecosystem,” McMahan said. “These bits of plastic, these bits of paper, these bits of glass and things like that all impact the ecosystem, so being able to pull it out of the water is really important.”
Keep ULM Beautiful affiliate coordinator Andrew Hardee explained why his organization sponsors the annual campuswide cleanup. The water sweep occurs every September, and participation is free.
“It’s super important that we take care of our waterways, especially our beautiful campus that has a section of the bayou on it,” Hardee said. “It just means a lot to see so many students come out here and participate and even spread out and collect more trash than we ever have before.”