CLARKSVILLE - If beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, Darrel Brothersen had a very pretty boat Thursday.

The 17-foot canoe was loaded with a tractor tire, a couple of coolers, remains of a fire pit and a metal barrel. Varying degrees of muck covered all of it.

The Tipton man paddled downstream on the Shell Rock River with the boat sitting low in the water, awaiting a chance to unload his bounty and start the process anew.

The big tractor tire is a trophy, junk on a grand enough scale that the volunteers of Project Aware celebrate.

Today the 100 or so volunteers with Project Aware float into Cedar Falls, the end of a journey that started a week ago in Mason City. It's the sixth year the river cleanup program has targeted a stretch of Iowa rivers.

"This is just an adult Easter egg hunt; that's all it is," Brothersen said.

In reality, it's more than that. Each year, the project pulls in tons of trash, recycling the rubber, plastics, glass and metals.

It's an effort to clean up the state's rivers, but even more so to bring attention to Iowa's neglected waterways.

"We always say it's bringing people back to the river. I grew up in Cedar Rapids, and back then you hardly would have known there was a river there," said Mary Skopec, head of the Department of Natural Resources water monitoring program, noting that the devastating flood of 2008 changed all that. "The trash is just a physical reminder of what we've done to our rivers."

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources started up Project Aware in 2003, inspired by Chad Pregracke's efforts to clean up the Mississippi River.

Volunteers spend all day combing shorelines for junk, loading it into canoes and depositing it with DNR personnel to sort through and dispose.

This year's expedition was initially scheduled for June 14-21, but widespread flooding caused it to be delayed until this week. Organizers had thought about changing the location or making it a land-based cleanup effort, but eventually settled on the original route.

About 200 volunteers were expected for the original trip, but that number was cut in half after the delay.

"It's amazing what we've pulled out with the crew we've had," Skopec said.

Volunteers camp at night and toil during the day. Soaked work gloves, sweaty bandanas and dirt-stained t-shirts are the fashion.

Some bring saws, pick axes, shovels and even a pulley to remove debris. One group of three men Thursday dug down with shovels to get underneath a metal culvert pipe half-buried in a mud-sand flat. They then huffed, puffed, pushed, pulled and eventually dislodged it.

Amy Griesen of Mount Pleasant started Thursday in a canoe. A few miles downstream from Heery Woods Park, a small group of Project Aware volunteers found a pile of junk back in the woods just off the river. One of the things they removed was a portion of floating dock, which Griesen climbed aboard, grabbed a paddle and rode the rest of the way to the first garbage dump in the makeshift craft.

A phone number spray-painted on one side of the dock led Project Aware coordinator Brian Soenen to contact the owner. Apparently the dock had been swept away in the flood upstream from Greene and been pinned in the current. The owner was unable to dislodge it, so he marked it in hopes it may be found after the flood. He retrieved it Thursday afternoon.

Near Greene, volunteers saw the most effects from the flood.

Manufactured homes upstream from Greene had washed out and carried items downstream. Volunteers found garage doors, chairs, couches and personal items. A tub containing crystal bowls was found, and organizers hope it can be reunited with the owner.

"This one's different after that kind of flood. You get dresser drawers, mirrors, personal stuff. It's heartbreaking," Brothersen said.

The Project Aware team finishes their journey today at Island Park in Cedar Falls. An end-of-trip celebration will be from 2 to 4:30 p.m. at Gateway Park.

Contact Jon Ericson at (319) 291-1461 or jonathan.ericson@wcfcourier.com.