Headquarters photo
By Kristine Yabumoto
Headquarters Media CPRA Coordinator
For the past five years Caltrans has participated in Coastal Cleanup Day, the nation’s largest annual volunteer event to remove litter from beaches, rivers, creeks, bays and wetlands. Cleanups co-sponsored by Caltrans’ Stormwater Public Education Campaign span the state, from Ocean Beach in San Francisco to Martha McLean-Anza Narrows Park in Riverside to Huntington State Beach in Orange County.
Since all state waters are interconnected, by cleaning up and reducing litter on local rivers, creeks and lakes, we prevent storms from flushing trash downstream to the coastline. Studies have found that 80 percent of trash on our beaches originated from an inland source.
On September 20, 2025, Caltrans employees and community members came together for a massive cleanup of Steelhead Creek in Sacramento, which flows into the American River. Fifty-three volunteers came together to collect roughly 57,000 pounds of debris -- about 45,000 pounds of trash and another 12,000 to 15,000 pounds of metal.
Bijay Panda, his wife Sandhya Panda, and his 8-year-old grandson were among the volunteers who participated in the cleanup. Panda works as a civil transportation engineer in the Office of Program Management and has worked for Caltrans for 22 years. In his spare time, he volunteers at community events hosted by the Odisha Association of Greater Sacramento (ODIAS). ODIAS is made up of volunteers from the Odia community, an ethno-linguistic group from India, who help support and promote the culture’s traditions and values in the Sacramento region.
“While we were cleaning up Steelhead Creek, we saw a temporary structure built [by a person experiencing homelessness],” said Panda. “It made me think about the power of opportunity—how ideas can become something greater. As an engineer, I believe that when people have access, they can make a real difference.”
Community stewardship is as important to ODIAS as family. Panda and other ODIAS members have ties to a coastal city in India called Odisha. In Odisha, families come together to support one another, and the community is tightknit. In the U.S., Odia work to create that same community here.
“When an Odia community member is going through tough times here in Sacramento and are away from their family in Odisha, we call and meet as a nuclear family,” Panda explained.
Panda asked his grandson to join him at Coastal Cleanup Day.
“He said, ‘Yes I would like to go.’ He knows what ‘cleanup’ means because he does it at home,” said Panda. “He saw and found new things [at Coastal Cleanup Day] but I believe he learned something from it because he went to school and he said he went there to pick up some stuff.
“Things like that we encourage. We believe we have the duty to give back and help keep our city clean and beautiful. That’s the thing we are encouraging our youth to do—to come forward and participate and give some time to help keep our California and Sacramento clean and beautiful.”
Panda believes environmental stewardship should begin at home and emphasized it’s everyone’s responsibility to help maintain California’s beauty. Panda also believes this should apply to our public transportation systems. Panda has been a public transportation commuter for the past 20 years, taking the light rail into work every day and recognizes the collective duty we all have to ensure our public spaces remain inviting and pristine. One of Panda’s goals is to involve the Odias community in cleaning up light rail stations around Sacramento.
“One day, if you see a clean station, it will make a very good impression,” said Panda. “It starts from our home to everywhere else, right?”
Other groups involved in the Coastal Cleanup Day in Sacramento included River City Waterway Alliance, co-founded by Caltrans employee Lisa Sanchez. The group is dedicated to addressing the local ecological health of the American and Sacramento Rivers and other waterways by engaging local citizen volunteers to remove trash at organized events.
As we start a new year, everyone can take part in protecting California’s ecosystem by participating in this year’s Coastal Cleanup Day on September 19, 2026. Visit coastal.ca.gov for more information and a local event near you to join.