A local off-road driving club and a freshly minted nonprofit with a mission to maintain trails and water routes of the Kodiak Archipelago are coming together Saturday to clean a stretch of beach near the mouth of Pillar Creek off Monashka Bay Road.

Most Kodiakans probably haven’t heard of Island Trails Network, and may not have heard of Emerald Isle Offroad either, but ITN executive director Andy Schroeder wants to change that.

Schroeder has been networking with better-known organizations such as the Boy Scouts of America, Kodiak Morning Rotary and the local U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary to draw people to the beach-cleaning event. The off-road enthusiasts and the trails group also have their eye on a discarded automobile at the beach, which they plan to use as an attention grabber during the Kodiak Crab Festival Parade.

“We are going to parade that car through the Crab Fest, and somehow try to send a message,” Schroeder said. “We don’t know how we’re going to phrase it. We don’t want to be mean, but we are going to say, ‘Don’t leave your (garbage) in our playground.’”

The beach cleanup is also meant to make Kodiakans more aware of the global problem of marine debris, which washes up on local shores with every tide.

“There is not any coastline on any island in the world that is not touched by marine debris,” Schroeder said, adding that too often coastal people overlook the problem.

“We train ourselves to look past it in order to see the beauty,” he said.

At times it can be frustrating. Schroeder, who markets his guide service as ecologically sensitive, once found an intact computer monitor while taking a group of clients on a sea kayak trip.

“I scouted the beach at Pillar Creek and I found a bottle of dish soap from Korea. We are worldwide, right at Pillar Creek,” he said.

The trails group secured a $1,500 grant from the Center for Alaska Coastal Studies for the Pillar Creek cleanup. The grant is another first for ITN.

In his presentations to other local groups, Schroeder describes the marine debris problem in detail. One of the slides depicts plastic debris spread out for the camera — six-pack rings, cigarette lighters, bottle caps and hundreds of unrecognizable bits of manmade detritus — all taken from the belly of a dead albatross. The collection makes a circle about 3 feet in diameter.

Diving seabirds spot the objects from the air, and often the objects are the size, shape or color of the prey fish or plants the birds crave. Once a seabird has eaten too much, it dies.

“They literally starve with full bellies,” Schroeder said.

The trails group plans to attack more than marine debris. They want to establish sustainable trails, designed to shed water quickly so they don’t erode into slippery hillside gulches or muddy quagmires that turn wet grassy areas to mud. They also have discussed in-town projects, becoming active in a plan for the Kodiak Island Borough to create safer walking routes around North Star Elementary School.

The local government is also involved in Saturday’s work at Pillar Creek. Borough Manager Rick Gifford waived landfill fees for ITN on Saturday, Schroeder said, and the group plans to deliver all the recycleable material they find to Threshhold Recycling, the nonprofit recycling company that provides jobs for people with developmental disabilities.

When ITN and the offroad vehicle group are through using it to promote their cause, the derelict vehicle from Pillar Creek will be recycled, too, courtesy of Nick’s Auto Salvage.

“Nick Troxell is going to take the metal, and waive his fee for the car. But we do not want to make it sound like we are in the business of removing old cars,” Schroeder said.

“Abandoning derelict vehicles is a problem here — you know that. It is just an unacceptable practice.”

The Pillar Creek cleanup will be Saturday, May 12, beginning at 10 a.m.

The group will first meet at the Kodiak Fisheries Research Center for a brief orientation and to carpool to the beach.

Mirror writer Scott Christiansen can be reached via e-mail at schristiansen@kodiakdailymirror.com.