Middle River Cleanup

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Description

This is a story I did for the Staunton Observer - the community journalism collective I was part of for WQSV 106.3 FM. It covers the local effort to cleanup the Middle River, which runs through Augusta County in central Virginia.

Vocal Characteristics

Language

English

Voice Age

Young Adult (18-35)

Accents

North American (General) North American (US General American - GenAM)

Transcript

Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
As with any river in the world Augusta counties, Middle River gets filled with its fair share of trash. Various plants and animals that call it home have to share it with tires, beer cans and the occasional refrigerator. Sometimes it's heavy rain that washes garbage is in the near 70 mile long river, but more often it's litterbugs on the bridges. Fortunately, the Middle River isn't alone. She has plenty of friends, the people that live along the Middle River and consider it a part of their own homes. The Friends of the Middle River, comprised of those residents and others nearby in the region, take a week every year to clear the river, the various debris that inevitably ends up in the water. For most of the friends, the Middle River is the line that connects the dots that are there. Homes spread out through Augusta County with a main common concentration in the Barona area since 2010. They put on rubber boots and gloves, grab trash bags and waited through the shallow river dragon canoes carrying equipment trash that they pulled from the river. As the years have gone, they've made more friends along the way to help because Joe McCue, a longtime friend of the Middle River in Verona resident, said it's about taking pride in the nature that he and the other share teams of volunteers. Anywhere from 1 to 4 to six people will get together, grab a couple canoes on, take a section of the river and walk through the river, picking debris up that they find in the river. The Friends of the Middle River get about 60 to 80 volunteers to help out with a week long yearly cleanup at summer's end, although most of residents who live along the river lots of Virginia Eagle distributing company employees volunteer every year and if the clean of week happens while school is in session. Students from Mary Baldwin and James Madison University's pitch in as well, some younger volunteers Trail Life USA, helped with the cleanup for the first time this year. Louis Miller, who leads the youth organization based out of Stanton's Victory Worship Center, took about a dozen members out on the river for the clean up that week. Their cleanup trip included a critter catch in which the kids got to learn about the insects that inhabit the Middle River. By the end, though, he said, the kids took away more than just trash from the experience. Fortunately, we didn't pick up a lot of trash, but it was enough to raise some concern in their hearts. For for the river, for the health of the river. All of the volunteers break into groups throughout the week, each taking their own mile long stretch of river to clean up Taylor. It's a hot Saturday afternoon when one of the final volunteer groups comes to the end of their cleanup, pulling their canoes a shore and piling up their haul for the day. As half the group waits for the others to go further upstream to retrieve their vehicles. They arrest on the riverbank next to fully packed trash bags and other items, says his chair is in fencing as well as others that usually wouldn't belong in the river. Thank you, said tires tend to be one of this frequent items found in there, which volunteer re Spool confirmed is a regular find in every cleanup. This year we got three tires out of the river and one inner tube, and last year we got seven tires as those prove a challenge. To remove larger groups of volunteers such as those from Virginia Eagle handled the Middle Rivers heavier duty sections. Volunteers have uncovered more peculiar items as well, such as the door to a safe and a tombstone. An entire car that washed in during heavy rain nearly three decades ago even lays upside down in the Middle River debris could be anything from plastic bottles or metal cans. Too old, UH, implements too old to pieces of large pieces of metal to wire to plastic playground implements. Anything you can imagine that I could get washed into a river way can find it on. No river cleanup. There was a noticeable difference this year in the amount of trash pulled from the Middle River. This time around, though, according to most of volunteers, the good news there was significantly less debris spotted during this year's cleanup. Pamela Patrick lives along the river in Verona, has been a friend for about three years and just finished her second ever clean up. Last year, there was just only a lot more trash and really remember, the water level is much so I'm not sure. I think it was lower this year. Way had to walk more, but but the big difference was just way. Had the canoe loaded down with all the trash that they had to pull out of this year, there was relatively little. It could be a sign of progress. But Patrick says that Mother Nature could also be playing its own role as well in the rivers relative cleanliness this year. It could also be a matter of what have been some flooding in the river, getting it'll take more cleanups in the future to compare and learn if the efforts are gradually keeping the Middle River clean. Anything is certain. Though it's up, the trash in the river is an issue that needs to be constantly tackled. As Louis Miller said, the Kids and Trail Life USA learned this year, the common question was, Why? Why do people do this? Lot of people put the stuff in the river. So it was. It was encouraging to hear the board asked this kind of question to help out with the future cleanup or to become friend as well. You can connect with Friends of the Middle River on Facebook or www dot friends of the Middle river dot org. For w Q SB news in Verona. I'm Calvin Pen