Photos: Respect the river

BRAT’s 17th annual RiverSweep went swimmingly last Saturday, the organization had 40 volunteers of all ages show up. Next up, on Sept. 22 and 23, the Connecticut River Conservancy will hold its 21st annual Source to Sea cleanup days.


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Black River Action Team founder Kelly Stettner greets another arrival of volunteers for the 17th annual RiverSweep.


RiverSweep volunteers Ed and Tammy showing their early hauls. The half-eaten pizza was found lying atop a riverbank bush close to the shopping plaza foot bridge. (According to the USDA, more than 25% of all food produced in this country is wasted. At the same time, more than 12% of our population suffer from hunger.)

2017-09-15 / Front Page Respect the river Volunteer groups clean Connecticut River ahead of Source to Sea By KELSEY CHRISTENSEN kchristensen@eagletimes.com Black River Action Team volunteers pose for a picture after hauling various garbage from the river. — COURTESY OF BLACK RIVER ACTION TEAM Black River Action Team volunteers pose for a picture after hauling various garbage from the river. — COURTESY OF BLACK RIVER ACTION TEAM On Sept. 22 and 23, the Connecticut River Conservancy (CRC) will hold its 21st annual Source to Sea cleanup days, where individual volunteers, employees of big corporations performing community service, and other organizations dedicated to river clean up will lift trash, tires, and other waste from watersheds throughout New England that feed into the Connecticut River and, eventually, Long Island Sound. But, one clean-up effort with which the CRC likely won’t be able to grapple is a 1,000-pound fuel tank submerged in the Connecticut River near Weathersfield. “That tank has been on our radar for a couple of years now, but we haven’t found the services,” said Angela Mrozinski, outreach and events coordinator for the CRC. To get the large fuel tank out of the river, it would first have to be hoisted off the river floor. It also needs to be cut into smaller segments. Those efforts would require the help of divers and underwater welders. “At this point we don’t have the resources,” Mrozinski said. “If something comes forward we’ll move on it as quickly as we can.” Ron Rhodes, a river steward with CRC, thinks the tank got there during Hurricane Irene. “We assume someone’s propane tank got washed down the river,” he said. Rhodes says he’s worked with the states of New Hampshire and Vermont to get the fuel tank removed, and Miller Construction company has expressed willingness to help by using their equipment, but without an underwater welder and divers, the tank may stay there until future cleanup dates. “ We definitely still need help with that,” Rhodes said. Cleanup efforts abound in the areas surrounding Weathersfield, however. CRC works with other river cleanup organizations, like the Black River Action Team (BRAT), who did their own River Sweep in Springfield on Sept. 9, and the Southeastern Vermont Watershed Alliance (SeVWA), who monitor E. Coli levels throughout southeastern Vermont. Though BRAT’s clean-up has already taken place, CRC counts their efforts towards the success of Source to Sea. “Source-to-Sea has provided me with trash bags, work gloves, guidance, and encouragement until I've grown this to a point where I'm an ‘old hand’ at the organizational piece of it,” said Kelly Stettner of BRAT. “They still bring me supplies and gather my information about what we found, and offer resources for dealing with big stuff like tire dumps.” BRAT’s River Sweep went swimmingly: the organization signed up 40 volunteers of all ages and a nine-person crew from U.S. Army Corps of Engineers worked to paddle and clean up the shores of North Springfield Lake. They found four tires, a Dora the Explorer lawn chair, three flip flop shoes, and plenty of cans and bottles. At Hoyt’s Landing in Springfield, BRAT collected a construction cone, a huge telephone pole insulating sleeve, a rusty truck disc brake, a shopping cart and basket, a birdbath pedestal, roughly 14 tires, and 25 bags of trash. The haul totaled three truckloads. “We all work together,” Rhodes said. “Everything from individuals going out on their own, to big corporations like Hypertherm.” Hypertherm, a plasma cutter manufacturer in Hanover, encourages their employees to perform community service on a routine basis. As a result, the company has contributed to river clean up efforts for several years. During the Source to Sea cleanup, they’ll be pulling trash and debris from the Mascoma River in Lebanon, the area under the Cornish Bridge in Windsor and Cornish, and Sumner Falls in Hartland. Meanwhile, a Weathersfield-Claremont greenup flotilla gathered 15 tires and other debris from the Connecticut River on Aug. 19. As for individuals, Rhodes says he has a grandfather that brings his grandson to the Source to Sea clean-up every year in his canoe. “The more the merrier,” Rhodes said. “Ultimately, our goal is to put ourselves out of business.” The CRC website proclaims that, in total, over 997 tons of trash and 11 “deadbeat” dams have been removed from rivers, over 16,000 trees have been planted, and over 160 sites have been tested for bacteria.