Watershed Cleanup Day
Watershed Cleanup Day 2010 will be held on April 17, 2010. To match up your volunteer group, organization, or even your family with a cleanup site or to become a corporate sponsor of Watershed Cleanup Day 2010, please contact Chris Finton, the 2010 Watershed Cleanup Day chair at (814) 234-0831 or Brianna at 237-0400.
Each year, ClearWater participates in the world-wide recognition of Earth Day by organizing a Watershed Cleanup Day to eliminate the excess waste plaguing Centre County’s watersheds. The date for 2009's cleanup was Saturday, April 25.
This event was initiated in 1997 with the collection and disposal of 17 tons of trash in the Spring Creek Watershed. Since our kick off year, we have removed over 2,000 tons of trash from Spring Creek, Halfmoon Creek, Beech Creek, Penn Creek, and Little Fishing Creek Watersheds. Our partnership with local contractors allowed us to begin attacking bigger sites, resulting in the removal of 1,793 tons of trash jsut since 2005! Volunteers collected 214 tons of trash on Watershed Cleanup Day 2009. Our biggest year in terms of tonnage was 2008, when the trash brought in by our volunteers tipped the scales at a stunning 467 tons!
This year we had a beautiful sunny day with near-record temperatures in the mid-80s! Volunteers gather—rain or shine—to remove harmful material from sinkholes, roadsides, illegal dumpsite, and stream banks. Removing such material helps rid groundwater of dangerous pollutants, strengthening the surrounding environment and reducing the need for local governments to spend unnecessary tax dollars on cleanup that can easily be taken care of by Centre County residents.
View the 2009 Thank You ad, the 2008 Thank You ad, the 2007 Thank You ad, and the 2006 Thank You ad from the Centre Daily Times to see a list of all of our volunteers, sponsors, and donors for each of these years..
A pile of trash is not an attractive sight, but trash can do worse than spoil the natural beauty of a place. Pollutants leaching from trash can enter your drinking water. Garbage can also cause injuries, harm wildlife, and its removal can use tax dollars that could be put to other uses. These are all excellent reasons to volunteer at our Watershed Cleanup Day, but as a volunteer you would also be able to enjoy the outdoors and be an active part of our community. This is a fun event that gathers together many individuals and organizations from all over the county. Young and old participate, and, afterward, we celebrate our hard work with a picnic in the natural beauty of Millbrook Marsh.
Help us surpass the more than 550 volunteers who answered our call last year, and help us rid the land and water of Centre County of tons and tons of garbage. Enjoy the outdoors as you help make them more beautiful!
Watershed
Cleanup Day’s success is due in large part
to the people and organizations who donate their time, equipment, and
manpower year after year. One particularly notable asset includes the
Watershed Cleanup Day planning committee. This volunteer committee
comprised of representatives
from ClearWater, local businesses, conservation
districts, watershed associations, solid waste authorities, municipalities,
and the general public begin meeting months in advance to select sites,
assign coordinators, solicit heavy equipment, secure reduced disposal fees,
and generate donations. Several members of the planning committee have been
involved since the project’s initiation, and this continuity ensures the
efficient use of time and resources. Thanks to the efforts of the committee
Watershed Cleanup Day has expanded from a few sites and volunteers to over
50 sites and 550 volunteers in 2009.
As this event grows each year so does our need to secure donations to help host the event and cover tipping fees to pay for the disposal of the refuse collected by our volunteers. In the past, ClearWater has received financial support for this project from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Susquehanna River Basin Commission, Centre County Solid Waste Authority, Centre County Community Foundation, Northcentral Pennsylvania Conservancy, the MS4 Municipal Partners (College, Ferguson, Harris, and Patton Townships; State College Borough; and Penn State University), The Dansko Foundation, Patagonia, and several other local municipalities and many local and national businesses, including Wal-Mart.
If you would like to make a corporate or individual contribution to support this essential community volunteer effort to protect our drinking water, please contact Brianna at (814) 237-0400.
Stories of Land, Water, & People: Sinkholes, and Dumpsites, and Trash... Oh My!