RiverSweep celebrates 15 years

The Black River Action Team’s annual RiverSweep is now in its 15th year. The team annually removes about a half-ton of garbage from the watershed.
http://eagletimes.villagesoup.com/p/riversweep-celebrates-15-years/1236420

RiverSweep celebrates 15 years Volunteers annually pull about 1,000 pounds from Black River By Chris Garofolo | Sep 08, 2014 Share on facebook Share on print Share on twitter Share on email More Sharing Services 0 Photo by: Chris Garofolo Perkinsville residents Ramlah Lauritsen, left, and her son Asa Leonard return to the RiverSweep headquarters Saturday morning with a garbage bag filled with debris. The family volunteered during the Black River Action Team's annual clean-up event last weekend. Aaron Weinstein of Springfield plays the guitar during the 15th annual RiverSweep event on Saturday morning. (Photo by: Chris Garofolo) View More... SPRINGFIELD — Numerous accolades and statewide recognition for her environmental work isn’t enough to stop Kelly Stettner from getting her hands dirty. The Springfield mother of two dives into a pile of debris and trash pulled from the Black River on a pleasant Saturday morning and begins to divide materials like corroded soda cans and dirty beer bottles into the appropriate piles outside the town shopping plaza. Stettner, with a dedicated and growing list of volunteers, has helped remove garbage and other man-made items from the region’s waterways as part of the Black River Action Team’s annual RiverSweep held in the first full weekend of September. The event is now in its 15th year. The team annually removes about a half-ton of garbage from the watershed. “I like the river. It is really, really that simple. I like the river; my kids swim in it; I like to fish in it and kayak on it; I like to just look at it,” said Stettner, founder and director of the action team, known warmly by its acronym BRAT. Earlier this year, she was presented the Zetterstrom Environmental Award through Green Mountain Power, a statewide honor for those working to clean up Vermont’s Great Outdoors. “I like to see trout, I don’t like seeing shopping carts in the river,” she continued. “I like to see a clean, healthy river.” After toiling over a mounting trash heap earlier in the morning, Stettner steps out from her hands-on approach and transitions to a management role, directing volunteers to new clean-up spots. “The people who show up are ready to work, dressed in their junk clothes and ask me to send them someplace. I think the fun part for me is when they come back and they tell me where they went, what they found, what they had to leave behind, maybe the wildlife they saw while they were out there. It's great just knowing that people are just really getting connected to the river,” Stettner said. “That’s got to be the most rewarding thing for me, the connections that I’ve seen people make.” The RiverSweep has become an annual convergence for many nature enthusiasts willing to haul debris from the Black River watershed. At sites in Springfield, Ludlow and Cavendish, an estimated 100 volunteers work along the 40-mile waterway that extends from Plymouth’s Black Pond to its delta with the Connecticut River. “I keep thinking about how it only takes a few people who have lousy habits to make this necessary, but there’s so many people that want to clean it up; it’s kind of cool,” said Ramlah Lauritsen of Perkinsville, who collected a bag of debris underneath the footbridge behind the shopping plaza with her children. “I love the positivity. It’s great to be able to latch onto it and try and help it grow.” Children snacked on hot dogs and potato chips following a morning of clean-up. The Rolling Research Center, sponsored by Valley Green Journal, used a microscope to examine some of the organisms living in the river. New this year was the BRAT “Junk Jam” where volunteers turned bits of garbage into musical instruments. Children pounded away on sheets of scrap metal and played the sides of a shopping cart like a washboard, the tunes gave the RiverSweep the aura of an autumn bazaar. Aaron Weinstein, a Springfield resident participating in his second RiverSweep with his daughter Ilsa, played the guitar and helped keep the harmony of his very own makeshift symphony orchestra consisting of children as young as five playing drums on old tires and upside Tupperware containers. What was once pollinating the river was momentarily given new life as percussion instruments. “The best part is the fact that there’s a conscience among the community to have a pride in their area and as I bring up my own children, showing them how being part of something like this can help make your world better,” Weinstein said. “Now we just added music to it.” There is a smorgasbord of junk — twisted metal poles and rotting plywood are tossed in a collection area next to plastic bags filled with empty bottles and thousands of discarded cigarette butts. Members of the Springfield High School football squad stood on the conquered mound of trash after digging out rusty shopping carts and bags of candy wrappers and plastic coffee cups. “It’s a lot of fun, it’s a good way to hang out on a Saturday morning and do something productive,” said Scott LaRiviere, a SHS senior and a captain of the football team. He and about a dozen of his teammates were on-hand Saturday to rid the river of rubbish. Members of the Cosmos football team traded in their green and white practice jerseys for lavender-colored T-shirts with the BRAT logo in the center. The high school students are usually among the first to sign-up for the duty of “shopping cart fishing,” where submerged four-wheeled carriages are yanked from the river using little more than a gaffing hook and rope. While the RiverSweep remains the largest, and most popular, of the BRAT activities, Stettner and her crew also host a fall festival to teach families about the watershed’s ecosystem. The group has also held workshops to demonstrate how to manage the Japanese knotweed, an invasive plant species, and has collaborated with other water quality monitoring program on the river.