By Austin Rust-
Since 1989, volunteers from six states – Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois – have met each year to remove litter and debris from the banks of the Ohio River and its tributaries in the Ohio River Sweep.
Organized by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission, in tandem with local environmental protection agencies, the sweep celebrated its 30th year of success on June 15.
This year, residents of Manchester, Wrightsville, and Rome participated in the Ohio River Sweep, along with volunteers at Brush Creek Campground. In neighboring Brown County, volunteers met in Higginsport, Ripley, and Aberdeen. Nearly 350 people in all signed up to participate in the Ohio River Sweep this year at these seven sites.
“It’s a combination of civic groups and community members that really want to have a hand in helping clean up the riverbank,” said Whitney Lawhorn, Education Specialist at Adams Brown Recycling. She has been the coordinator for sites along the river in Adams County and Brown County for three years. Jim Richards managed the site at Brush Creek Campground this year.
Each site typically covers a stretch of bank a half-mile to a mile long.
“Communities like Rome, Wrightsville, and Aberdeen,” Lawhorn continued, “open it up to everyone, and they’re very close-knit communities, so they all pitch in to help.”
In Manchester, members of the Bentonville Buckeyes 4-H Club met at Kinfolk Landing, a boat ramp and historical watchtower, to pick up what had come to the banks and washed ashore.
“Our club just always likes to be able to give back to the community,” said Erica Swearingen, leader of the group. “I think it’s good for the kids to teach them to keep their town clean, and to see what goes into it. The kids always enjoy it year to year.”
This year, there were about 15 to 20 volunteers from the Bentonville Buckeyes.
“We have Cloverbuds as young as five years old,” said Swearigen, “and our oldest member is 17.”
Eager volunteers extended the clean-up into the town as well.
“The kids worked hard along the river, and then we went to the community park,” said Swearingen, “So we cleaned up there too.”
According to the group, a lot of glass, fishing line, and string was found. One object – a big blanket – was particularly heavy and difficult to move, but it was too unique to pass up.
“When it’s something like that,” Swearingen laughed, “The kids don’t seem to mind the weight.”
Swearingen and the Bentonville Buckeyes 4-H Club are grateful to Marla Bowling for helping organize and coordinate the event at Kinfolk Landing in Manchester.
“I always work with Marla on getting the kids down here,” said Erica. “She’s a great coordinator for our club, to get us involved year to year. She always gets shirts made for us, buys pizza, and provides trash bags and gloves. Marla does a great job working with our club.”
Last year, a total of 91 coordinators managed 151 cleanup sites along the Ohio River. 20,000 trash bags were distributed, along with 2508 pairs of gloves, and volunteers removed a total of 320 tons of trash from the Ohio River shoreline and its tributaries.
Seven tributaries to the Ohio River hosted one or more cleanup site last year. These tributaries were the Allegheny River (PA), the Monongahela River (PA), the South Licking River (KY), the Hocking River (OH), the Lower Muskingum (OH), and the Little Blue River (IN).
The Ohio River Sweep relies solely on contributions from industries, corporations, and volunteer coordinators throughout the Ohio River Valley. These contributions provide clean-up supplies to volunteers, student prizes to winners of the poster contest, and promotional materials to the public.
Visit http://www.orsanco.org/river-sweep/ for more information on the event.
