"We are busting our butts out there to keep the Red River clean and I need someone from the province to come and say 'Good job, we'll match whatever funding you bring in,'" said Robert Belanger, a councillor for the municipality of St. Clements and a natural resource officer for Manitoba Conservation.

Belanger launched Red River Operation Clean Up in 1999. Since then, the program's two employees, Jim Reimer and Pat Kwiatkowski, have picked up thousands of kilograms of garbage along the river between Lockport and Netley Creek.