Boy Scout Curtis Orris works hard to make up for the carelessness of others. See more pictures in the photo feature at the bottom of this webpage.
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Robin Orris, Executive Director, of the PA CleanWays Chapter in Jefferson County, wrote the Digest recently to tell us how they organized the cleanup of three miles of stream banks in and around Brookville. It was a great effort by lots of partners and a real family affair!
PA CleanWays of Jefferson County partnered with our local Boy Scout Troop #64 to complete a cleanup on the Northfork, Sandylick and Redbank watersheds that all come together in Brookville, Jefferson County on September 28 and 29.
The cleanup was a Eagle Scout Project headed up by Kodel Orris and involved 30 boys and adults cleaning up three miles of stream banks all within the Borough of Brookville. (My other son Jeremiah did an appliance cleanup project that collected over 12 tons of appliances and trash as part of his Eagle Scout Project in 2001.)
We found a computer, gas pipe line, full bottles of alcohol. We also found many items left from the major flood that took out many homes in the Brookville area in 1996. The boys say they learned that it’s very hard to cleanup trash and they for one will not be throwing things on the ground.
More than 100 bags of trash were removed weighing nearly half a ton.
The International Coastal Cleanup provided the bags for this cleanup. Also donated for this project through PA CleanWays were: the food and drinks, the cost of disposal of the trash, gloves, vests, and bags
This was actually a small cleanup. With that first section adopted as a scout project, we’re waiting on the paperwork to complete the adoption of the rest of the streams. We had to postpone cleanups in those areas because it was scheduled for the Saturday the hurricane came through and we had major flooding. The water was up to the top of the stream banks more than 25-30 feet. That caused a problem for the cleanup in that it was hard to walk in the high grass laying flat and covered in mud.
We had another cleanup last September in the southern part of the county that resulted in collecting over 13 tons of trash. We partnered with the Punxsutawney Sportsmen Club and Boy Scout Troop #245 to clean up Stonehouse Road.
We have more cleanups planned for the Spring-- the entire 12 miles of the Mahoning Shadow Rails–to-Trails in Punxsutawney-April 23 – with funding for this project provided by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of Recreation and Conservation, Community Conservation Partnerships Program; the stream banks and wetlands in the City of Dubois April 9 and/or 16, partnering with the Sandy Lick Conservation Initiative and the City of Dubois. We also plan the cleanup of Reynlow Park outside of Reynoldsville and do a cleanup at the baseball fields in the Borough with the school kids around Earth Day.
But cleanups aren’t the only things we do.
We also do environmental fairs at the schools (out of 20 schools we were in all but two last year) to educate kids about rural dumping, littering and ways to recycle keeping the county and our water clean. We also do community education events at scout meetings and community fairs.
We also co-hosted the tire, appliance, gas grill propane tanks and batteries recycling day each spring and fall and an Electronics Recycling Event or Household Hazardous Waste each Spring with Jefferson County Solid Waste Authority.
This year we will be starting an assessment for all the illegal dumps in the watersheds of Jefferson County with a Growing Greener Grant we received last Fall.
So if anyone in Jefferson County wants to help out, contact Robin Orris, PA CleanWays, by email to: reo1@alltel.net or call 814-856-3291.
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