73 Bags of Garbage Pulled From Rivers
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
25 September 2011
By Kim Leonard
Kayakers and canoeists combed the waters and shorelines of the
three rivers near the Point on Saturday and collected 73 bags of
trash, plus items that included a patio umbrella, bike tires,
tarps, ropes and lumber.
That was "more, much more" than cleanup organizer David Rohm
expected.
"We could have had 100 kayakers and been out all day and not come
close to getting it all," he said.
About 35 volunteers joined the four-hour Paddle Without Pollution
effort, starting from one of three launch points: the Allegheny
River shore in Millvale, the Ohio River's north shore across from
Brunot's Island, and South Side Riverfront Park along the
Monongahela River. In all, they covered about 26 miles of
shoreline on both sides of each river, before meeting at the
Point.
Rohm of Scott and his wife, Melissa, planned the cleanup after
taking their first kayaking trip near the Point in July.
Until then, they'd traveled waterways at Presque Isle in Erie,
Moraine State Park and other Western Pennsylvania locales, always
picking up small bags of litter because, "You're in the water. Why
do you want to paddle through garbage?" Melissa Rohm said.
But on their trip around Pittsburgh's rivers, "We are paddling to
the Point, and David and I are seeing way too much for the two of
us to handle," she said.
They created a Paddling Without Pollution website, posted notices
and enlisted friends to contact other canoeists and kayakers.
Volunteers traveled alone yesterday in kayaks, or in pairs in
canoes, and used their paddles to pluck trash out of the water and
put it into bags. Some left their vessels to pick up trash on the
shorelines.
Cleanup crews in a motorized fishing boat and a pontoon boat
followed along, gathering full trash bags from the shorelines or
from the other watercraft. The nonprofit Allegheny CleanWays
provided trash bags, and Kayak Pittsburgh loaned some vessels for
volunteers who didn't have their own.
Trouble spots with the most litter: The South Side and the
Allegheny River shores by the David L. Lawrence Convention Center.
Plastic bottles made up about 70 percent of the trash collected,
said David Rohm, who hopes to make the cleanup an annual event.
Ken Boas said he and his wife, Andrea London, of Point Breeze
likely will paddle more often in the rivers around Pittsburgh,
after taking part it the cleanup.
"This is inspiring," London said, "especially when there is so
much negative news about what is happening to the rivers."
Washington-based American Rivers ranked the Monongahela as the
ninth-most endangered river in the country last year, because of
the expanding natural gas industry in Western Pennsylvania and
West Virginia.
Jean Kirby of Friendship, a friend of London and Boas, often
canoes along the city's rivers.
"It's always unpleasant," she said of the amount of trash in the
water. "I'm sort of anti-litter everywhere. It would be easy for
us not to do this in the first place."
Kim Leonard can be reached at kleonard@tribweb.com or
412-380-5606.