BY Patience Collier

News Editor

On April 19, the Center for Leadership and Community Engagement (CLCE) will be sending 150 volunteers to clean up the area around the Yakima River.

This will be the 41st annual Yakima River Cleanup, according to Lana Abuhudra, CLCE program leader.

“The City of Ellensburg told us what needed to be cleaned up, and we started organizing groups,” Abuhudra said.

Meanwhile, Central’s environmental club has been working towards better quality on campus as well. The club spent last Saturday cleaning garbage out of the irrigation canal that runs through campus, according to William Ligon-Bruno, club president, and Eric Arroyo, club senator.

The irrigation canal has been informally called the Ganges, after the river in India, because of the pollution issues in the canal. However, according to Mark Auslander, director of Museum of Culture and Environment, this slang could be seen as disrespectful because of the sanctity of the Ganges river to the Hindu community.

“The Ganges is the most sacred river in India,” Auslander said. “There’s a sneering tone when Americans use that term here about the irrigation canal.”

According to Ligon-Bruno, part of the goal of pulling all the trash out of the irrigation canal was to showcase the amount of garbage at the Earth Day Festival, which is on April 19.

“We wanted to display the garabge,” Ligon-Bruno said. “To show what people are throwing away on campus.”

Water quality both on and off campus is a concern for several different groups at Central, since it does have an effect on many outdoor student hobbies.

“A lot of students like to float the river, so seeing it clean makes them happy,” Abuhudra said.