The ClearWater Conservancy Watershed Cleanup Day on April 22 was another outstanding success. Here's how Jennifer Shuey, ClearWater Conservancy’s Executive Director, summarized the event for the students at Bellefonte Middle School.

 

She also issued them a challenge to go out in their neighborhoods on Saturday and pick up some trash, because Earth Day is not just about listening and learning, but about taking action to clean up the planet!

 

In that way, the middle school students joined hundreds of other volunteers in scouring Centre County last Saturday during ClearWater Conservancy’s 13th Annual Watershed Cleanup Day. Their mission: to rid their neighborhoods, parks, streams, sinkholes, and forests of illegal dump sites and unsightly litter.

 

The beautiful, sunny day with near record temperatures in the mid-eighties drew equally record-breaking numbers of volunteers to the event. Brianna Hutchison, ClearWater’s Water Resources Coordinator and Watershed Cleanup Day project manager, pre-registered nearly 550 individuals representing over 25 local organizations for the event.

 

After the Cleanup, many of the volunteers gathered at Millbrook Marsh Nature Center for a picnic to thank them for their hard work. Comcast employees, who chose ClearWater’s Watershed Cleanup Day and Arbor Day events as their 2009 Comcast Cares volunteer project, cooked hundreds of hot dogs and hamburgers for hungry volunteers.

 

Their crew of nearly sixty had been out at the Spring Creek restoration site at the Penn State Sheep Farm all morning weeding and mulching to celebrate Arbor Day. The grills were fired up around 11:00am and ran non-stop until after 2:00pm when the last volunteer group showed up at the Marsh, muddy and hungry.

 

At another Arbor Day site, a team of volunteers from SPE Federal Credit Union, SES, and Pack 35 Wolf Den planted trees and shrubs at Masullo Park in Bellefonte. According to Liz Neff, one of the SPE Federal Credit Union volunteers, “it felt good that we were able to help out with this project. The fact that this park is right in Bellefonte and with what we did for Arbor Day, it means that future generations will have a beautiful spot to play with their pets and children.”

 

Although the final numbers for Watershed Cleanup Day will not be in for another few days, ClearWater estimates that volunteers collected nearly 200 tons of trash during this year’s event. Since the project’s inception in 1997 through last year, Watershed Cleanup Day volunteers have removed and properly disposed of 1,872 tons of illegal trash.

 

Participation by local contractors allowed ClearWater to begin attacking bigger sites, resulting in the removal of 1,579 tons of trash between 2005 and 2008 alone. Glenn O. Hawbaker, HRI, Inc., Stone Valley Construction, Best Line Equipment, and LandServ, Inc. all donated heavy equipment and operator time to Watershed Cleanup Day 2009. Walk’s Towing, Wadlington Remodeling, and Rees’ Truck Stop donated winch or dump trucks to assist with pulling heavy trash up steep banks or hauling it away.

 

The Centre County Solid Waste Authority actively partnered with ClearWater Conservancy to make this year’s Watershed Cleanup Day a success. The Authority offered reduced tipping fees at the transfer station and a 4:1 match on scrap metal for trash brought in from Watershed Cleanup Day sites.

New for 2009, the Authority also allowed Centre County residents to bring their scrap metal to the transfer station from April 22 - 28, to be designated towards the Watershed Cleanup Day to offset some of the tipping fees.

 

The large numbers of volunteers, sheer volume of trash collected, and partnerships with local businesses combine to make ClearWater Conservancy’s Watershed Cleanup Day a unique event.

ClearWater received a 2009 Pennsylvania Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence for this one-of-a-kind project. At the Awards ceremony in Harrisburg on April 22nd, state representative Scott Conklin presented ClearWater with a citation from the PA House of Representatives. The citation commended ClearWater for its “inestimable contributions to the welfare of society through a sense of fellowship and through its programs, which are designed to enhance the quality of life for all.”

 

“This Governor’s Award for Environmental Excellence is really a tribute to all of the volunteers over the years that have joined together to clean up our watersheds, plant trees, or care for our Mother Earth is their own small ways,” said Jennifer Shuey. “Let’s all live every day as if it was Earth Day.”

 

Special thanks to the following for the financial or in-kind service support of Watershed Cleanup Day:

-- Centre County Solid Waste Authority;

-- Dansko Foundation;

-- the Spring Creek Watershed MS4 Partners (State College Borough, College Township, Ferguson Township, Harris Township, Patton Township, State College Borough, State College Borough Water Authority);

-- Graymont, Veronesi Building & Remodeling, G&R Excavating and Demolition, Clean Sweep, Independent Recycling Services, Meiser & Earl, Hydrogeologists, Converse Consultants, Veolia, Staiman Brothers Recycling Corporation, Nittany Bank, State College Elks; and

-- Glenn O. Hawbaker, Inc., Ameron, Best Line Equipment, HRI, LandServ, Maxwell Trucking and Excavating, Stone Valley Construction, Walk’s Service Center, Rees’ Truck Stop, and Wadlington Remodeling.

 

For more information, visit the ClearWater Conservancy website.