Missouri River Relief closed out its fall cleanup season on Saturday, October 25, with its biggest single-day effort of 2025: 162 people — 123 volunteers plus 39 River Relief crew — gathered at the Bonnots Mill River Access, about a mile from where the Osage River meets the Missouri, and hauled out an estimated 3.85 tons of trash.
The event page credits sponsors Union Pacific, the Conservation Federation of Missouri, Republic Services and Missouri American Water, plus partners including the Missouri Department of Conservation, Missouri River Bird Observatory and Missouri Stream Team. Volunteers came from as far as Missouri S&T’s civil engineering club and Lincoln University’s Tri-Ag Club, alongside a New Haven High School group and a local Scout troop. The Jefferson City News-Tribune covered the cleanup the next day.
Bonnots Mill is downstream of Rocheport, but the trash doesn’t stay put — what washes off our banks after a flood is often what a crew a hundred river miles downstream ends up bagging months later. It’s the same volunteer network, and the same boats, that shows up on our stretch of the river too.