Rivers Alive! Cleanup a Success
by Janet Westervelt
A special thanks to all the folks from the Metro Atlanta Group who joined the Sierra Club team for the Peavine Creek Clean-up on October 16. Our team was one of five working to improve the condition of the Peavine Creek watershed. Part of our team did trash removal from the stream and others worked on removing kudzu from a future park.
It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day for wading around in the waters. Items pulled from the river ranged from kitchen sinks to garage door openers, from golf balls to soccer balls. There was also a lot of wildlife seen along the creek. Seen was a beaver, heron, 4-inch copperhead, an unidentified snake, 4-inch crayfish, large tadpoles and fish. Our kudzu group worked hours cutting and pulling out vines from a small lot behind the CVS Pharmacy in the Emory Village. There are plans in the works for turning this into a community green space with tree plantings and such.
Saturday's clean-up was part of Rivers Alive!, the eighth annual Georgia River Clean-up Week. We were a part of a record-setting statewide campaign to preserve Georgia's 70,150 miles of rivers and streams. The statewide effort is expected to be the single largest volunteer effort to beautify Georgia's water resources in state history. Georgia Adopt-A-Stream expected over 6,000 people to participate in this year's (1999) event, compared to about 3,500 in 1998. The mission of this statewide campaign was to create awareness of and involvement in the preservation of Georgia's water resources. There were lots of environmental, governmental and corporate sponsors that helped provide funding for the great t-shirts given to all participants. The Peavine Watershed Alliance was responsible for organizing our particular clean-up. We got support and donations from CVS Pharmacy and Emory University. Starbucks, Everybody's Pizza, Park Bench (formerly Jagger's) and Pizza Hut provided some great coffee and pizza.
If you would like more information about Rivers Alive, check out their web site at http://www.riversalive.org .
Last updated: 30 Nov 99