Garry Elgear will devote parts of his Super Bowl Sunday to cleaning up the Coquitlam River.

Elgear and a team of volunteers will take to the banks of the river Sunday morning for the annual Coquitlam River Cleanup, a grassroots initiative that aims to remove the local waterway from a list of B.C.'s most endangered rivers.

"What we're trying to do is take a negative and make it a positive," said Elgear, who owns PoCo's Riverside Fly & Tackle.

"We're trying to get rid of that classification and make it a better place."

The classification Elgear is referring to comes by way of the Outdoor Recreation Council of British Columbia, which releases a yearly top 10 list of B.C.'s Most Endangered Rivers.

The Coquitlam River has long made the list due to issues like urbanization, gravel extraction and excessive sedimentation.

It was listed as the 10thmost endangered river for the last two years in a row; seventh in 2008 and 2009; fifth in 2007 and sixth in 2006.

Elgear has spearheaded Garr the local cleanup for more than a decade, and during that time he's pulled almost everything imaginable out of the river: sleeping bags, old clothing, CDs, fishing line and bait, copper wire, shopping carts and even bags of dog feces.

"I found a Santa Claus gnome in the river a couple weeks ago - I literally found Santa Claus in the river," Elgear said. "You name it, and I will find it in the river."

The Coquitlam River is home to all five salmon

species native to B.C. waters: chum, coho, pink, spring and sockeye. On top of the fish, the area is also home to a large eagle population, as well as river otters, deer, bears and bobcats.

"The likes of Clark Gable and John Wayne used to fish here," Elgear said.

"They used to come to this place when it was called Steelhead Ranch. A lot of Hollywood folks would come here to fish all the time. We want the river to become the same river that it once was again."

Sunday's cleanup is slated to run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and Elgear's shop will be supplying all the gloves and garbage bags needed. Volunteers are asked to meet at Riverside Fly & Tackle, located at 2847 Shaughnessy St., before being divided into teams of anywhere from six to 12 people.

From there, the groups will cover a roughly 15-kilometre plot of land stretching from the Red Bridge on Pitt River Road north to the upper reaches of the Coquitlam River watershed. Those who volunteer will have their names entered into prize draws.

Free flycasting lessons are also being offered on Saturday starting at 10 a.m. at Elgear's shop.

"I'm a third-generation Port Coquitlam resident and this is my way of giving back to the community," Elgear said. "That's the way my dad raised me. Everything we pack in, we pack out."

For more info, see www.rsfat. com.

jkurucz@thenownews.com