“There’s a boat-load of trash!” exclaimed Emily Jackson as she picked-up trash from the banks of the St. Mary’s River during the 5th Annual St. Mary’s River Cleanup. Jackson was one of 24 volunteers that gave the St. Mary’s River a spring cleaning on Saturday, April 6, removing one boatload and several canoe and kayak loads of trash from the river.
With the river level high from recent rains, volunteers carefully stacked tires within canoes and placed other trash in their kayaks as they paddled the St. Mary’s River Water Trail focusing on the area between the Great Mills Canoe/Kayak Launch and Adkins Road. Another set of volunteers took their boat up the St. Mary’s River filling it with trash, while several others combed the shoreline collecting trash around St. Mary’s College of Maryland.
In addition to the 19 tires collected, plastic bags, beer cans, children toys, a wallet, and even a mattress were removed from the river during the cleanup, equating to 17 bags of recyclables, 11 bags of trash, and 980 lbs. of loose trash.
St. Mary’s County Public Works and Transportation assisted by allowing proper disposal of the trash at their St. Andrew’s Landfill. Trash and litter on the roads can wash into streams when it rains and can harm wildlife which can mistake it for food or get tangled in it. Some waste can also leach toxins into the water. In addition, unsightly litter can decrease property values and hurt businesses, recreation, and tourism.
The St. Mary’s River Cleanup is hosted by the St. Mary’s River Watershed Association ( www.SMWRA.org ), and is part of the Alice Ferguson Foundation 25th Annual Potomac River Watershed Cleanup, potomaccleanup.org . In 2012, there were more than 600 sites in Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. Nearly 15,000 volunteers had collected 37,600 cigarette butts, 2,566 tires, 31,450 plastic bags, 262 tons of trash, and 185,300 recyclable beverage containers from the Potomac River Watershed and surrounding areas.
