Cleaning Vermont's Waterways: Hard working crews and recovering from Hurricane Irene

Rozalia Project put 41 people back to work and cleaned over 500,000 pieces of trash from along Lake Champlain and Vermont’s rivers as part of Irene recovery and partnership with the VT Dept. of Labor

Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean’s partnership with Vermont's Department of Labor,  employed 41 long term unemployed or hurricane affected people, during March through November 2012. Rozalia Project’s crews removed trash and hurricane debris from waterways throughout Vermont. Trash in our waterways, has multiple dangers from ingestion, entanglement to leaching toxic chemicals into Vermont's marine environment.

Here are our figures:

• 310.68 miles of Vermont's waterways cleaned
• 503,317 pieces of trash removed
• 88.5 tons of trash removed
• 41 employees put back to work
• 207 volunteers helped clean up 
• 488 clean up locations
• 161 exfoliant beads and resin pellets were found in one 6” by 6” sample at North Beach, Burlington

Locations Cleaned:

• Burlington crews cleaned the shores of Lake Champlain and the Winooski River
• Waterbury crews cleaned the Winooski and Dog Rivers
• Middlebury crews cleaned the Neshobe, Tweed and White Rivers, and southern Lake Champlain
• Randolph and Hartford crews cleaned along the branches and main-stems of the White River in West Braintree, Braintree, Randolph, Royalton, Hancock, Granville, Rochester, Stockbridge, Pittsfield, Bethel, West Hartford, and Hartford.

Vermont's Polluting Dirty Dozen: Thousands of the following items were removed by Rozalia Project’s cleanup crews who recorded every piece of trash recovered.

Food wrappers

Cigarette butts

Exfoliant beads

Building insulation foam

Beverage bottles

Beverage cans

Glass

Plastic bags

Bottle caps

Shotgun shells

Tires

Paper/tissue

Conclusions and Recommendations for a Clean Vermont:

Rozalia Project believes that we can clean Vermont's waterways and keep them clean for future generations to enjoy. We believe that a combination of  physical cleaning and modified practice will achieve Clean Water in Vermont.

Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean would like to see Vermont implement or grow the following programs.

1. Greater number of paired trash and recycling bins in public spaces along Vermont's waterways
2. Beverage bottle/can redemption program
3. Encourage biodegradable forms of exfoliant beads in cosmetics, face and body washes
4. Physical screening to stop exfoliant beads entering our waterways
5. Increased fines for dumping of trash
6. Education program at elementary school level, to the dangers of trash and how to dispose of trash and recycle responsibly
7. Tire recycling program
8. Single stream recycling
9. Hunter education

This program was made possible thanks to partnership with the VT Dept. of Labor and support from the Vermont Community Foundation, Waterwheel Foundation, Ben and Jerry’s Community Actions Teams, Lake Champlain Basin Program, Pomerleau Real Estate and dozens of nonprofit organizations, towns and individuals working very hard to make VT a better place than before the Hurricane.

Introducing Rozalia Project: Cleaning Vermont's Waterways

 For Immediate Release

May 10, 2012

Contact: Rachael Miller

Rozalia Project: Cleaning VT’s Waterways

802-578-6120

rachael@rozaliaproject.org

Rozalia Project: Cleaning Vermont's Waterways

Rozalia Project: Cleaning Vermont's Waterways has removed 24,993 pieces of of trash, totaling 11,303 pounds from 6 miles of shoreline along the banks of Lake Champlain and the Winooski river since September 2011.

Cleaning Vermont''s Waterways is a partnership between Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean (a Vermont based 501(c)(3) non profit) and Vermont's Department of Labor to cleanup Vermont's waterways by putting the long term unemployed or people affected  by the flooding of spring 2011 or Hurricane Irene back to work.

Cleaning Vermont's Waterways is currently employing 14 people in the Burlington and Waterbury areas, with 6 more workers coming online in the Middlebury area on Monday, May 14. A work crew for the White River area of central Vermont is being recruited to start May 21. The work crews remove trash and debris along waterways affected by the spring floods of 2011 and Hurricane Irene. In addition to the paid crews, volunteer cleanups run every 2 weeks through the summer and fall with 200 volunteers to date.

Cleaning Vermont's Waterways has the support and help of the Vermont Community Foundation, Ben and Jerry's Community Action Team, Pomerleau Real Estate, Seventh Generation, Mad River Valley Rotary, VT Dept. of Parks and Recreation, Winooski Valley Park District and Burlington Parks and Recreation. Additional partners are joining the program weekly.

Cleaning Vermont's Waterways has several project highlights to date: 

• Our Waterbury work crew removed 315 tires from the banks of the Winooski in two days
• On Green Up Day, 40+ volunteers removed 4,157 pieces of trash weighing 596 pounds from the Burlington waterfront at the Community sailing Center
• Each of our work crews in Burlington and Waterbury are averaging over 1000 pieces of trash removed from our waterways per day

All the removed trash is recorded by type and weight, recycled or disposed responsibly. This data will become part of the first comprehensive marine debris study conducted in Vermont, providing critical baseline data, trend indicators and marine debris hotspots.

Some of the data already recorded is shocking:

• 4165 pieces of trash removed per mile of  Vermont's waterways
• 1883 pounds of trash removed per mile of Vermont's  waterways
• 165 pieces of micro plastic (<5mm) in a 6 inch square sample on North Beach, Burlington. This includes plastic pellets and plastic beads used in the cosmetic industry
• 315 tires removed from 1 mile section of Winooski river in Waterbury
• 1000 pieces of styrofoam removed from Derway Island at the mouth of the Winooski river

Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean’s Executive Director, Rachael Z Miller, notes "Marine debris is the sleeping dragon of Lake Champlain's pollution problems. Pieces of plastic and foam are filling Vermont's waterways from a variety of sources. These pieces degrade and breakdown into ever smaller pieces while leaching toxins and adsorbing persistent organic pollutants. As these pieces become smaller, they are ingested by a wide array of creatures in Vermont’s marine ecosystem and can end up in our human food chain. It is a real ticking time bomb. Trash and marine debris collection and removal is a critical issue for our freshwater and all marine environments."

Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean Founder, James Lyne, states, "Our rivers, lakes and oceans are being poisoned and choked by marine debris. This is a worldwide  environmental problem. It is great that the Cleaning Vermont's Waterway's program is showing the world how government at the state and federal level, in partnership with a nonprofit like the Rozalia Project for a Clean Ocean and with the support of local businesses, organizations and volunteers, can successfully tackle a major environmental problem to make a significant positive impact on the health of Vermont's waterways - one piece of trash at at time."

For more information, high resolution photos of Rozalia Project’s work in Vermont, or to arrange an interview or site visit, please contact:

www.rozaliaproject.org

Rachael Z. Miller, Founder/Exec.  Director

Rozalia Project: Cleaning VT's Waterways

Mobile: 802-578-6120

Winter office: 802-767-3784

Blog: http://rozaliaproject.blogspot.com/

Photo Gallery on Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/rozaliaproject/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RozaliaProject

Many hands to pick up a lot of trash... the ICC comes to Vermont!

Though we have been doing the vast majority of our work along the (east) New England coast, it was very exciting to come home to VT for some marine debris work right on Lake Champlain on the west coast of New England. Saturday, Rozalia Project headed up Vermont's involvement in the Ocean Conservancy's International Coastal Clean-up. Vermont was one of only 4 states not to participate last year and that is ridiculous... our lake is huge, spans two countries AND directly connects us to the ocean via two major rivers so we really have no choice but to participate.

And thank goodness we did. It will be very interesting to see what we find next year because this year, we were all shocked at the amount of trash that was picked up within 1/8th of a mile on either side of the Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center, our hosts for the afternoon. The reason next year will be telling is that this clean up came on the heels of two brutal disasters for the Champlain Valley and Vermont/Upstate New York. Last spring the lake stayed feet above flood level for over a month destroying waterfront property, docks and more. And of course, just over over two weeks ago, with Hurricane Irene, Vermont had it's worst flooding in nearly 100 years with the Winooksi River, among others, at 23 feet above flood stage. The Winooski drains into the Lake and the destruction caused by Irene had marine debris in the form of people's homes and whole yards  as well as many of the state's roads and bridges washing down our rivers.  

Among the haul, we certainly can attribute the large metal canoe and municipal intake pipe as results of the storm. However, nearly 70 pounds of recycling  and the majority of the 409 pounds in 1,864 pieces of trash looked more careless in nature. We followed close to expected worldwide numbers with our top five items (in numbers of items):

Food wrappers: 293

Cigarettes: 275

Styrofoam pieces: 254

Caps and lids: 217

Plastic bottles: 153

Other finds included the expected cups, cans, glass bottles, tape and plastic sheet as well as the less expected shotgun shells, tires and light bulbs with a bit of the wish-we-didn't-see-it thrown in - syringes (2), condoms (12), diapers (4) and a pair of undergarments. Eew.

As you know, I really love getting and seeing trash taken out of any body of water and I am psyched with the haul. But, a big highlight of the day was the people. There was a college sailing regatta happening at the same time, they were delayed due to lack of wind for much of the afternoon which was great for us. We have to thank all of the sailors who helped especially the Middlebury College Sailing Team. They rocked the clean up bringing back 6 overstuffed bags of trash and recycling plus tires and the intake tube - the whole time looking like they were having fun. My kind of people. I think I might have found an intern or two for next year from that group as well! We also had a great turn out from UVM. Coco, their sailing coach, singlehandedly filled two big bags with trash and kept the data card accurate and we had some more students come down the hill to scour the shore by foot and by kayak. It was a group of 3 UVM students who teamed up with Tom Peterson and his 30' sailboat and crew (Tom joined us on American Promise this summer) to recover the aluminum canoe off the rocks (among other bits of trash and recycling).

One of my favorite parts of the day were the kids. We had a bunch of families come down and the kids worked as hard if not harder than their parents. I LOVE seeing that (and all the kids who stayed for the Trash Bash got t-shirts, I couldn't resist).

As always we are rarely able to do anything alone and this day was no exception. Our first thank you is to everyone who came and helped picking up trash and keeping good record of what they found. I want to thank my friend Marsi Foster for giving up an afternoon at the harvest festival with her family to help me at the registration desk (she was perfect). The Lake Champlain Community Sailing Center were excellent hosts, as always, and a big shout out to Colin for giving us Chris, Bill and the other volunteers when your work was done. Thanks to CSC's efforts, CSWD is going to do a free dumpster pick up to remove the trash from the day. And to Gary Kjellen for cleaning up on South Hero and making the trek to Burlington to drop off his data card and say a few words about the Lake Champlain Committee.

Looking ahead we are psyched and inspired to keep the ball rolling in Vermont. Our mission is marine debris, we are Vermonters and we just had a wake up call that Vermont has no less marine debris than many of the coastal sites we visited.

Stay tuned as we head up additional clean ups this fall and next year's ICC in Vermont will be even bigger and more effective with sits across the state!

Thank you again for a great day and a great start to what I am optimistic will be many bigger, better ICC's and best of all, a much, much cleaner Lake Champlain.

rzm