Keeping it Clean, Green and Healthy

Over 200,000 people get their drinking water from the Meramec river, according to the Open Space Council of St. Louis. Thursday, the Open Space Council of St. Louis was out in making sure it can stay that way.

Three times a year, Whole Foods selects a non-profit organization as part of  its "5 Percent Days" program, in which the store donates 5 percent of all of its day's profit to the chosen organization. This year, one of those non-profits was the Open Space Council, a group dedicated to protecting both the public land and public water of the St. Louis area.

The group started the day with demonstrations at Brentwood’s Whole Foods and finished at the Town and Country location. The council raised awareness about its mission and gave away free food and gifts. The five percent of profits donated to the Open Space Council will go toward its annual Operation Clean Stream.

Amy Butz, communications and program manager for the council, said the Operation Clean Stream's goal is to gather approximately 2000 volunteers to clean both the Meramec river and its different tributaries.

"Back in the 60s the Meramec river was a dumping ground," Butz said. "Even though it's miles better now than it was back then, every year we still pull out thousands of tires and tons and tons of garbage."

Another one of the group's goals is to promote the usage and maintenance of the many public parks in the region.

"There is a nature-deficit disorder in our society," Butz said. "We all need some more outdoor time to reconnect with the natural resources we have around us."

Kimberly Cuddeback, who is on the board of the Open Space Council, performed a cooking demonstration with healthy food, which was given away at the Whole Food's event.

Cuddeback became involved with the Open Space Council through her participation in the Maryland Heights Residents for Responsible Growth, an organization created to develop green space near Creve Coeur Lake Park. After the Maryland Heights plan failed due to the economy, a group of developers planned to take over the land and create a shopping center.

Cuddeback has since join the Open Space Council in her efforts to become more involved in sustaining the outdoors.

Cuddeback said she is tired of seeing every single green space lost to concrete buildings.

"I am tired of seeing everything that I enjoyed while growing up gone," Cuddeback said. "I think that's wrong and you get to a point when you have to say, 'That's enough'."

Butz said governments must think creatively and avoid taking away funds from public parks, or selling them to land developers.

"Keep the parks a priority," Butz said. "There is a whole list of reasons of why our open spaces are important: quality of life, increased value of property, economic value, not to mention all the environmental value. Making budgetary decisions is way beyond me, but there are ways to think outside the box and keep them a priority."

Butz said the Open Space Council is also there to fill gaps in funding when local governments can't maintain a park.

"We help municipalities and other entities take care of the parks that they have," Butz said. "We will go in and fix up their trails or pull honeysuckle or any works that they need to get done to get their parks back in shape."

The 44 annual Operation Clean steam will take place on August 27. Interested volunteers may inquire at openspacestl.org.