River Cleanup – 2007

2007 Berkshire County River Cleanups

This year we helped with three Berkshire County River Cleanups as part of National Rivers Cleanup Week.

Sheffield Cleanup – On Saturday, June 2, we put our canoes and kayaks in at Kellogg Road in Sheffield and paddled down to the covered bridge, pulling out trash along the way. This clean up was organized by the Sheffield Land Trust in conjunction with the Housatonic Valley Association. Along the way the BEAT team pulled out a “Don’t Eat the Fish – PCB Contamination” sign, among other things. We also stopped to take pictures of mussles

Great Barrington Cleanup – On Saturday, June 9th, we met at the boat launch on Brookside Road in Great Barrington and followed the riverbank down East Sheffield Road. This cleanup was organized by the Great Barrington Conservation Commission with the Housatonic Valley Association
and BEAT.

Pittsfield Cleanup – On Sunday, June 10th, we met at Wahconah Park in Pittsfield. The Mayor, James Ruberto, came out to thank us and wish us good luck. He had highschool graduations to speak at, so could not join the mucky fun. State Senator Ben Downing and At-Large Pittsfield City Councilor Matt Kerwood both dug in and hauled stuff out of the river near the Wahconah Street bridge by the Pittsfield Cemetery. This cleanup was organized by the Housatonic Valley Association and BEAT with help from the Housatonic River Initiative and Housatonic River Museum.

National River Cleanup Week, is presented by American Rivers, and kicks off a series of community-based stream cleanups nationwide beginning the week of June 2-10, 2007. This popular annual event raises public awareness of the magnitude of trash accumulating in our nation’s waterways. Local volunteers will be participating along with tens of thousands of volunteers taking part in hundreds of cleanups across the country to remove trash from local rivers and streams.