Once again, community calls for city to clean up Brush Creek

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — People in the community are calling for the city to clean up Brush Creek.

Areas around Troost Avenue and Cleveland Avenue are littered with everything from Styrofoam cups to plastic bottles and soccer balls.

Craig Smith said, “The feeling is... it’s almost degrading.”

Smith grew up two blocks from Brush Creek. In 2015, he filmed this video calling the city to take action. 

“Three years later. Three years later and still, nothing has happened,” Smith shared. 

41 Action News reached out to the Kansas City Parks and Recreation Department which explained why trash collects in the creek. Louis Cummings said it’s, “Because all of the trash that flows and blows into Brush Creek flows downstream. So as it gets downstream it gets lower and there are more areas that bend and turn so that’s where the trash kind of gathers and collects.”

Volunteers can pitch in to clear some of the clutter. In the last five years, the parks department has almost twice as many of them. The hours the volunteers dedicate though are spread out over multiple projects. 

Cummings said the Parks clean Brush Creek three times a week. Smith responded, “I don’t believe that they come out here three to five times a week. Yea, I don’t believe that they come out three to five times a week.”

Smith wants more action since to him, “It doesn’t take a lot of effort to say we care.”