Three San Juan Island youths have been walking 12 miles a day to clear San Juan County’s roads and beaches of litter and noxious weeds.

The Ecology Youth Corps has been working for the past month on all four ferry-served islands. They conclude their work this week, and, as one participant stated, “it’s not easy work but it’s been worth it in the end.”

The partnership between San Juan County Public Works and the Ecology Youth Corps is funded by the Ecology Community Litter Cleanup Program.  The EYC is Washington state’s largest youth employment program. The youths earn minimum wage while gaining job skills, teamwork experience, and safety awareness. The three teenagers hired this year from San Juan Island are Abbie Vogel, Christian De La Zerda and Carter Feuhr.

“We have removed well over a ton of trash, nearly 1,000 pounds of recycling, pulled countless hundreds of noxious weeds, cleaned around 100 miles of roadways and over 90 acres of beaches and parks,” said Supervisor Erik Moore.

This year the crew expanded its work to include the removal of noxious weeds along county roads.

“Identifying and removing noxious weeds provides an opportunity for island youth to enlarge their understanding of the natural world, while helping out their island community,” said Judy Jackson of the SJC Noxious Weed Board. “The Noxious Weed Board is grateful to the Ecology Youth Corps for their help in removing tansy ragwort and common teasel from our roadsides.”