Rivers Alive volunteers throughout Georgia are preparing to spend days and fall weekends cleaning up the state’s more than 70, 250 miles of waterways and coastlines, as the annual campaign to clear trash from our rivers, lakes, and coastal water gets underway. The cleanup is expected to once again be the largest single volunteer effort to beautify Georgia’s water resources.
Volunteers from Etowah Water & Sewer Authority and Keep Dawson County Beautiful continued their goal of protecting local water resources by cleaning 5 different sections of the Etowah River today. The sections included the bridges of Highway 53, 136, 9, Hugh Stowers and Kelly Bridge Roads in Dawson County. Approximately 5 miles of the river was cleaned in, under and around the bridges as well as the side of the roads. Volunteers hauled out tires, cans, bottles, batteries, a broken commode, vacuum cleaner, pieces of metal, wood, packaging and construction materials, and other trash. Volunteers filled a 12 x 8 dumpster with an estimated amount of 7 yards of trash. Approximately 8 tires were taken to the Dawson County Landfill to be a part of the Keep Dawson County Beautiful’s Tire Recycle Day in November. One employee took a wide piece of old wood to use in a DIY project. Some plastic bottles were washed and recycled. All in all, it was a good day, reflecting on specials moments in our local watershed and fostering connections between people and the natural resources we use every day.
