Shoal Creek 'Shopping Cart Corral' being held Saturday

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AUSTIN, Texas — A “shopping cart corral” happened Saturday morning at Shoal Creek.

The event, put on by the Shoal Creek Conservancy, comes in light of a 2022 report by the Watershed Protection Department about Austin's creeks.

"A surprise fact [is] that over 500 carts were found. In Shoal Creek alone, we are setting out to collect the 36 shopping carts identified in the just this one creek," said Shoal Creek Conservancy executive director, Ivey Kaiser.

Shoal Creek spans 11 miles in Austin, running from Highway 183 and the MoPac Expressway to Lady Bird Lake.

"It’s incredibly important for all Austinites [to know], not only is the creek a place to come and enjoy the Shoal Creek trail [and] enjoy a shady spot near the water in the City. It poses a lot of environmental benefits for wildlife, for plant species and for our urban tree canopy," Kaiser said.

There were 75 volunteers at Saturday’s event. H-E-B and other local grocery stores also helped out and reclaimed shopping carts and picked up trash.

On Saturday morning, 48 carts were pulled from Shoal Creek, six scooters and 111 bags of trash. The group hopes this will prevent flash flooding once we do get some rain.

"Concern with litter in the creek, whether it’s from a chemical standpoint [or not], it's an ingestion risk for wildlife. When we look at shopping carts, we look at the risk of capturing debris, capturing large items and becoming a blockade in the creek bed that could back water up and become a flood risk in the future," Kaiser said.

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