In an effort to help clean Iowa waterways, 68 volunteers picked up 1,640 pounds of trash from Fourmile Creek and the surrounding area during the Fourmile Fest on Aug. 11. The Iowa Rivers Revival Service Squad, which helped organize the Fourmile event, has partnered on 91 similar events this year in an effort that has led to the cleanup of more than 61,000 pounds of trash from Iowa waterways. “I’m trying to learn as much as I can about leaving the land and the water in better shape than when I arrived here,” Lee Tesdell, commissioner of the Polk County Soil and Water Conservation District, said in a prepared statement. “For the common good, [some] things that we do on my farm wouldn’t necessarily be beneficial to me, but they might be to people downstream. That’s what stewardship means to me.” Fourmile Fest was part of the River Run Trash Grab, or R2G2, and was organized in partnership with ICON Water Trails, Athene, Polk County, Trout Unlimited, the Polk Soil and Water Conservation District, the city of Des Moines Parks and Recreation, Sustainable Iowa Land Trust and Polk County Conservation.