STOUT — Doris Roe said she finds it hard to believe that with all the good intentions shown by the annual “Ohio River Sweeps,” that some people continue to use the river as “a garbage disposal system.”

The river had its own “sweep” this past week as it jumped to flood stage of 50 feet and more in the Portsmouth area. On the tributaries and on the main stem of the river, trash that had been dumped on the shores was picked up by the rising waters and moved out.

Roe, 82, watched Wednesday from the backyard of her home on the Ohio shore eight miles west of Portsmouth as a steady stream of trash flowed by on the current. Trouble was, it didn’t all flow on by. Back currents and a whirlpool brought much of the debris in to lodge against her bank. Loads of plastic containers, bottles, cans and other assorted items of trash, held back somewhat by several small trees with their tops sticking above the surface, was ready to be deposited on her bank as the water receded.

“I would be all summer trying to pick all that up,” she said.

She’s lived in the white brick house 38 years and this isn’t the first time her property has been trashed by the river, although the happenings haven’t been frequent.

“What I don’t understand is why people dump on the river banks and throw trash in the water. It seems like it’s getting worse, not better” she said.

When her husband, Randall, who died six years ago, was alive, they had steps leading down the bank to a dock where they kept their runabout tied.

“If we had a boat that could push all that trash out away from the bank, it would save me a ton of work or probably hiring someone to clean it up,” Roe said.

Roe has lived along the Ohio all her life. She lived on the Kentucky shore above Grant Bridge and then at Beattyville below the bridge.

She walked it when it froze over in 1938. With Grant Bridge temporarily closed, her mother walked the ice to get to her job at Selby’s shoe factory.

She wonders why the river doesn’t get the respect it once had and the respect it still deserves.

“All the cities up and down its banks need the river. Beautiful paddlewheel showboats used to stop at Portsmouth, but now they go on by. They had powerboat races on Labor Day and people enjoyed them. Portsmouth doesn’t seem to care for the river anymore,” she said. “I guess we all will have to accept things the way they are and forget the things that have taken place in years past.”

Meanwhile, she continued to try to figure a way to float that conglomeration of other people’s trash out from the shore and send it on down to the Mississippi.

G. SAM PIATT can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 236.