Winter Texans hit the beach to clean it up

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND — More than 60 Winter Texans spent Friday morning combing the beach for something other than shells and sand dollars as rough surf crashed onto the shore.

The volunteers picked up more than 6,000 pounds of trash during the 16th annual Texas General Land Office Winter Texan Cleanup at Beach Access No. 5.

Debbie Cain, from Huron, Ohio, said she found the soles to shoes, beer cans and lots of bottle caps.

“I found bottle caps by the hundreds,” she said as inquisitive seagulls flew overhead.

Cain has been coming to the Rio Grande Valley for five years. She said doing her part to keep the beaches clean is important to her.

“The first year I was down here, I was walking with a friend who had a dog, and that year the beach was a lot dirtier,” she said. “But it’s been cleaner for the last four years, I would say. It was a little dirtier after Hurricane Dolly.”

While this was her first time at the Winter Texan Cleanup, she said picking up trash she finds on the beach is just something she does anyway.

“I still try to pick up trash,” she said. “If I see something, I pick it up.”

Cain comes down to the Valley in January and said she will stay through March.

Shirley and Elie Lambert, and Leona Begrand, traveled all the way from Saskatchewan to spend their winter in the Valley. They came in January and will stay through February. And since they were here, the Lamberts and Begrand thought they might as well pitch in and pick up some trash.

“We came out because we get to enjoy the beach and it needs to be cleaned,” Begrand said.

One thing they noticed while combing the beach for trash with plastic bags in hand, was much of the trash they found showed the signs of people having a good time.

“We get up in the mornings and it’s obvious there’s been a party. So we pick up the cans and throw them in the garbage. We’ve been doing that regularly since we have been here,” Begrand said with a laugh. “And it’s funny, because the cans are right next to the garbage can.”

But not everything they found was from light-hearted fun. Shirley found a used syringe.

“I found a needle in the sand. But the needle was turned down in the sand. So somebody was being careful, in a funny way, I guess,” Shirley said.

Adopt-A-Beach Coordinator Renee Tuggle said the General Land Office holds these events because a lot of marine debris lands on Texas beaches due to the convergence of currents in the Gulf of Mexico. Another factor is inland trash San Antonio, Dallas, Austin and other cities that is carried by rivers to the Gulf.

“ “Anything that gets washed down the storm drains ends up here,” she said. “People forget that we’re all connected to the coast. All of our rivers and tributaries make their way down to the coast. Like they say, ‘Trash travels.’”

Tuggle said Winter Texans are drawn to the cleanup event out of a sense to give back to the community.

“The snowbirds, when they’re here, they really want to get out and do something good for the community while they’re enjoying their time here for two or three months out of the year,” she said. “It’s a good way to give back to the community, to take care of the beaches that they enjoy.”