“This is kind of a favorite for Earth Day. It’s kind of a nice kickoff to our field season, and a lot of the work we’ll do later on,” coalition coordinator Lindsay Peterson said.

The group picked up trash on the cross country ski trail and also looked for invasive garlic mustard, she said.

“We’ve been managing some (garlic mustard) populations throughout the park for over a decade now and we find a few where people tend to dump yard waste on the borders of the park. It’s really common this time of the year — it tends to pop up early. It’s been growing for a couple weeks now despite the snow. It’s an early season one and it’s really easy to manage. You just pull it out,” she said.

The coalition does invasive species management in areas throughout the five counties they serve — Dickinson and Menominee in Michigan and Florence, Marinette and Forest in Wisconsin. They are primarily involved in invasive species removal around the Menominee basin, plus outreach and education.

Volunteers — from left are Matthew Korpi, Andrew Korpi and Audrey Smith — collect garbage Wednesday on the cross country ski trail at City Park on Earth Day. (Marguerite Lanthier/Daily News photo)

One project they will be working on this summer will be a clean up of Pine Creek from the Groveland Mine Ponds all the way down through that watershed.

“We’re looking to have some streamside stuff for that later in the summer,” she said.

Turnout Wednesday was lower than expected, but she figured many people were working in their own yards because it was a nice day after so much bad weather in the spring.

“This is one of my favorites (for cleanup) … because being a disc golfer who frequents the course daily, it is nice to come out and celebrate Earth Day by doing that,” volunteer Matthew Korpi said.

“It’s our local park, but we wanted folks to get out in a really calm and recreational area, just to be able to give back as our way to say ‘thank you’ for the park being here,” Peterson said.

The coalition is based out of Kingsford. This summer, they plan to change to an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit and will be rebranding as the Roots & Rivers Collaborative.