Trinity River trash cleanup underway in Fort Worth

FORT WORTH, Texas - The city of Fort Worth is looking for volunteers to clean up a massive amount of trash that collected in the Trinity River.

A lot of the trash is a result of the flooding rain we got earlier this week.

Runoff drains into the river, and any litter around washes in there with the rainwater.

The city's clean-up effort started Thursday and will continue through the weekend.

Just beneath the Fourth Street Bridge near Downtown Fort Worth, we found Derrick Moon on a Friday afternoon outing with his son, Enzo, looking for fish. Instead, they found a collection of floating debris along the banks of the Trinity River.

"There’s water bottles. There’s wood, a lot of Styrofoam, Gatorade bottles. It’s pretty bad," he said.

After Monday's torrential rain, Fort Worth Code Compliance along with the Trinity River Authority and Trinity River Water District started sending out scouts looking for areas with debris and trash building up.

Lending a helping hand was a slow trickle of volunteers.

Starting Monday, city crews will focus on cleaning up Lake Arlington and Lake Worth.

"They will be going with specialized equipment and boats and trained operators to get that debris and litter out of the bodies of water," explained Lola McCartney with Fort Worth Code Compliance.

On Thursday, the city council extended its flooding disaster declaration for another month with cleanup and damage assessment in mind.

The city has allocated $136 million over the next five years for high-priority flood mitigation projects, like widening roadside ditches and improving drainage pipes and culverts.