In the last two weeks, more than 2,700 tons of debris has been collected in the lower Russian River area.

Clean up efforts are still very much underway following those devastating floods, and more rain is expected to come this week.

Mud caked to the ground of the River Theater in Downtown Guerneville has owner Jerry Knight scrubbing every day.

“It’s been the worst in a lot of years,” Knight said. “Of course there are a lot of people that took a worse hit than I did.”

Without flood insurance, Knight is tasked with clean up all on his own.

In an effort to help things along, Sonoma County officials did extend their clean up aid to businesses owners like Knight for the remainder of the week.

It’s not just the homes and business that are in need of clean up, conservationists say it goes much further than that and the impact the floods had on the Russian River need to be a focus.

“The Russian River leads directly to the Pacific Ocean and at this time after the flood, the Russian River is not settled and as you can tell it’s aquaclear on the Austin Creek side and as it reaches the Russian River it’s pure toxic levels,” said Iris Graduanov.

Iris Graduanov has lived in Cazaderos her whole life and she says she’s never seen the river look like this for so long.

The Department of Toxic Substance Control has been testing the river and preliminary results show some troubling numbers.

Graduanov says local groups can only do so much and she’s hoping the federal government will step in and help, soon.

Some 300 volunteers are expected to come out Saturday to help with river, beach and creek clean up and organizers are hoping more folks will come to lend a hand.

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