Getting the Junk out of the Tuck

Posted on April 22, 2008 | Filed Under Cleanup, Events, Southeast 

Josh 2Josh Klein
National River Cleanup Coordinator

P1010008 This weekend I went down to Cullowhee, NC in to lend support to the Tuck River Cleanup organized by Base Camp at Western Carolina University. Despite crummy weather early in the day, close to 500 people came out to clean up the Tuckaseegee River.

This is the 24th Annual Tuck River Cleanup and the folks at Base Camp have got the logistical management of this event down to a science. It was really quite impressive seeing the team of close to 30 staff/volunteers pull this thing off to make sure that the hundreds of people who showed for the event had a worthwhile experience. The total haul was incredible and some interesting things were dragged out of the river (see the slide show below).

The group I went out with were mostly students at WCU and we had a great time paddling the river. But we weren’t out for some leisurely weekend float, the Tuck’s got some tricky sections of river to navigate. Of course we pulled out some incredible pieces of junk too: five tires, two buckets, discarded street signs, rusty pipes, cans and bottles, snack wrappers, one oil drum and some unknown nefarious device that we just called “the a-bomb” because we could not tell what on earth it could otherwise be (sorry no photos from the river or of the a-bomb - had to protect the camera). All told, the Tuck River Cleanup removed nearly 7 tons of trash.

Afterwards, Base Camp hosted a BBQ for all the participants with live music and a raffle. American Rivers donated a Kokotat PFD and spray jacket that were given away to two lucky Tuck River cleanup volunteers.

The Tuck River Cleanup is a shining example of a large community effort to cleanup it’s river, but not every cleanup is or needs to be this large to be effective. If you’ve got a river near you that needs some attention and cleaning strongly encourage you to organize your own cleanup event. It’s not hard to do and we’ve created a cleanup organizers handbook to help you through the process.

It was a really great experience and totally worth the 8+ hour drive. Thanks Base Camp for your hospitality and for the tremendous effort everyone put into protecting this terrific recreational river in Western North Carolina. I hope to see y’all again next year. Until then, my photos are below.


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One Response to “Getting the Junk out of the Tuck”

  1. River Cleanups Go Big with Supersized TrashCat : American Rivers Blog on April 29th, 2008 7:02 am

    [...] a TrashCatTM will never replace community participation during a planned river cleanup, a fleet of these boats could greatly aid folks like Chad Pregracke of Living Lands and Waters or [...]

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