The Edith E is home and safe. We’ve started scraping paint and pulling out the busted/rusted hardware. She’s still in running condition and we’ve been taking her out for lunch time forays down river. Once we get all her lights working we’ll start the nighttime runs. The River is really polluted. There is garbage everywhere, it’s just amazing. There’s a Riverkeeper’s organization here, but I think they only really do cleanup once or twice a year. Also they are an overtly-political agency that is dedicated to slowing development. That’s fine by me, but it strays from the main problem that need addressing: Get the freaking trash out of the river. So Gary and I are beginning to research what it would take to start our own organization that is focused only on getting garbage out of the river. Our model hopes to take after http://www.livinglandsandwaters.org/OurTeam/default.htm

To that end we are going to be refitting the Edith E to reflect her new calling. The big piece that we are missing is: where to put the garbage we collect. At this moment we have 3 big hunks of wood lashed to our dock (two pilings and platform made of 6X12s) that we need to pull out of the water and dispose of. So far we haven’t found any takers. I’m hoping to begin lobbying the city for support. We’ll see how it goes.

Also we hope to refuel with biodiesel in the not too distant future, but we’ve got to change some seals first. Any of you out there with biodiesel connections: get in touch with me so we can start working on the logistics.