By Dan Klepal
Enquirer staff writer

Joe Engelman (left) and Don Matthews return from cleaning the banks of Big Bone Creek with a boat full of trash. The Enquirer/SARAH CONARD

UNION - The Ohio River and many of the smaller streams that flow into it - like Big Bone Creek here in southern Boone County - are cleaner and moving a little more easily after thousands of people around Greater Cincinnati collected tons of trash from those stream banks Saturday during the 16th annual River Sweep.

More than 40 people scoured the banks around Big Bone Landing, a boat dock near Big Bone Lick State Park. They found enough trash to half-fill a 60,000-pound trash bin with an assortment of plastic cups, beer bottles and tires, along with several oddities - a bowling ball, a University of Kentucky basketball and a pink Hula Hoop.

Justin Blackaby, who will be a sixth-grader at Summit View Elementary School in Independence in the fall, said he picked up most of the stuff he found.

"Sometimes you find old Mountain Dew bottles or toilet paper," 11-year-old Justin said. "I didn't pick up any of the toilet paper, though, because I was afraid it was used. I just left that alone."

River Sweep draws tens of thousands of volunteers from the six states along the 981-mile Ohio River. About 2,000 miles of the river's tributary streams also are cleaned every year, making it one of the largest clean-up events of its kind.

Joe Engelman, who organizes the event at Big Bone Landing with his wife, Joyce, said some youngsters in the cleanup this year were performing community service.

"They'll leave here feeling better about themselves," Engelman said. "We let them know that they don't have to get into trouble to come back next year," Joyce Engelman added.

The volunteers went out, about a dozen at a time, on a pontoon boat. They collected trash along the banks in large bags, which were then thrown onto a power boat - affectionately dubbed the "garbage scowl" - trailing behind.

Across the river, more than 120 volunteers showed up for the cleanup that started at Schmidt Field off Eastern Avenue in Cincinnati. It was one of the largest turnouts ever, and they collected enough trash to fill a pair of Dumpsters and two dump trucks, said Jeanne Ison, a spokeswoman for the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, which organizes the event.

Ison said the total weight of the trash collected Saturday won't be known until next week.

But at Schmidt Field, the crews found a bingo ball numbered 073, enough shoes to fill Imelda Marcos' closet and a message in a bottle, written last week by a 4-year-old boy who lives in the East End. The note said the boy hoped his bottle would sail all the way to the Mississippi River.

It only made it about six blocks.

All of the trash collected Saturday will be taken to approved landfills, or recycled.

"We had a great turnout and a great day," Ison said.

E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com