World Photo by Madeline Steege Oregon State Parks personnel, with the help from Shutter Creek Correctional Institute inmates, clean the pond in the botanical garden at Shore Acres State Park on Thursday.

CHARLESTON - Forty goldfish and 400 newts are in luck, thanks to people shoveling muck. They’ll have clean living environs.

Oregon State Parks personnel, with help from the Shutter Creek Correctional Institute inmates, cleaned the Shore Acres State Park pond this week. The mud was 10 to 12 inches thick, requiring the mud-booted workers to scrape and sweep the ooze to the west end of the pond, but  not down the drain. 

The mud is dumped outside the botanical gardens and covered with mulch. 

What happens to all those coins people toss in the pond? Well, there aren’t many, said park ranger Supervisor Ellie Kinney-Martial. Park workers take the coins, which are stained black, and clean and tumble them. Then they donate the money to the Friends of Shore Acres.

The Shutter Creek inmates said they had seen 300-400 newts in the pond when they started cleaning. They rescued them and  set the amphibians on the edge of the pond. Most wandered into the foliage. The park rangers expected to take two to three days to complete the annual cleaning project.