GSWA PRESS RELEASE
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568 Tempe Wick Road Debra Dolan |
For Immediate Release Sent June 16, 2009
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Volunteers Tackle Pollution in Loantaka Brook
Pitching in to help clean up Loanta Brook in Morris Township on June 6
are (left to right) Mark Nyhan of Morristown, Sue Ellen LaBelle of Madison,
Lynda Brush of Annandale, Chuck Paul of Madison, Emily Lummer of
Chatham, Frank Stillinger of Chatham, Linda Slocum of Pequannock, Rick
Slocum of Pequannock, and Erin Bye of Morristown, NJ AmeriCorps water–
shed ambassador who helped arrange this year’s stream cleanup event.
Morristown — About 20 local area residents came out to clean up Loantaka Brook and Kitchell Pond on Saturday, June 6 as part of National River Cleanup Week. Great Swamp Watershed Association and NJ Americorps Watershed Ambassadors Program teamed up to organize this year’s event.
Volunteers filled twenty large trash bags with everything from basketballs to a sideview car mirror. “We collected lots of balls of all shapes and sizes, a tire, a broken stop watch, a shoe, a couple of pacifiers, and lots of aluminum cans and plastic bottles,” said Kelley Curran, GSWA’s Director of Water Quality Programs. “We thought the stream channel and pond would be cleaner than it was because of previous years’ National River Cleanup events held at this site, but there was plenty of trash to grab,” Curran noted.
This popular annual spring event is presented by American Rivers to raise public awareness nationwide about the magnitude of trash accumulating in our nation’s waterways. “We’ve chosen the Kitchell Pond area as our participatory site for the past three years because of the degradation we continue to observe in Loantaka Brook,” Curran stressed.
GSWA also took Madison High School students out to Loantaka Brook for their “Day of Service” on May 20, this time to tackle pollution from South Street to Kitchell Pond.
According to Ms. Curran, organized stream cleanup events are a tremendous help to Great Swamp Watershed Association’s efforts to improve water quality in the region’s streams.
For information on other GSWA programs, events and volunteer opportunities, visit www.greatswamp.org.
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Founded in 1981, the Great Swamp Watershed Association is a non-profit
organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the water and land of
the 36,000-acre watershed region in Morris and Somerset counties.
The organization works to maintain the beauty and health of open space, and to monitor and
protect five streams: Loantaka Brook, Great Brook, Primrose Brook, Black Brook,
and the Upper Passaic — which feed into the Passaic River and
providing drinking water to more than a million people.
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