RESERVOIR RESCUERS
Volunteers clean up shoreline
TROY, N.Y. >> Twenty-five volunteers from across Rensselaer County got up early Saturday and volunteered part of their day to keep a valuable piece of the county clean.
The 10th annual Tomhannock Reservoir Shoreline Cleanup drew a group of mostly adult volunteers, many with ties to the environmental movement, who were eager to help their community.
Gathering near the reservoir’s causeway in a des- ignated parking area, a few yards off Route 7, the group was given plastic bags, instructions on where to go, and turned loose.
The 6.5 mile-long reservoir provides drinking water to 135,000 people living in nine communities in three counties. The yearly event is sponsored by the Rensselaer Land Trust with the cooperation of the city of Troy.
“We sponsor this each year because a big part of our mission is watershed protection and protecting water quality is part of it; plus, it sup-
plies so many people with drinking water,” said Kristina Younger, president of the Land Trust’s Board of Directors.
“When we first started we were pulling couches, appliances, and tires out of the shoreline. Now, it’s not so bad. We’re just cleaning up things left from last year’s recreational activities.”
The reservoir allows no boats of any kind.
Fishing is allowed from the shoreline in summer and ice fishing is allowed in winter.
Land Trust member Nick Conrad remembers the early days when the large items of trash were being removed.
“Over the last few years we’re concentrating more on where people have access,” he said.
“The watershed is not highly developed and we’d like to keep it that way. We use this event to heighten the importance of clean water, not only for the people that are getting their drinking water from it, but for the whole county.”
At 9:10 a.m. with a cool breeze blowing through the trees and full sun overhead, Land Trust Treasurer Bob Crowley hopped on the cargo bed of his SUV and gave the volunteers their instructions.
“Take your bags and go out and find the streamers that have been tied to a few of the roadside trees,” he said.
“Pick a spot, park your car and move down along the shoreline to the next streamer. The object is to fill the bags.”
Once filled, the bags could put by the roadside where they would be picked up Monday by a crew from Troy.
One of the day’s volunteers listening to Crowley’s instructions was Troy Mayor Patrick Madden.
He stood in the semi- circle with the others dressed in work clothes, a baseball cap and wearing a pair of well-used work gloves.
“We thank you all for coming out today,” Madden said.
“Fifty years ago people had a vision here and we’d like to continue that vision and keep it pristine.”
Not far from Madden was Steve Fountain from East Greenbush, one of the communities that gets its water from the reservoir via the city.
“I’ve seen the notices for this the last couple of years but I always had something going on,” he said. “This year I didn’t so I said, let’s go do it. It’s good to do something to save the environment.”
Once Madden had driven to a spot on the east side of the reservoir, he was quickly out of his car and working his way to the shoreline picking up empty two gallon plastic water jugs, discarded pieces of cloth, plastic cups and paper food containers. Within 10 minutes, his bag was half full.
“Fifty years ago [the city] built the water treatment plant by the dam,” he said.
“That was a big step up for the city. We pull 21 million gallons of water a day from it. That’s not the maximum amount we can pull but it’s a lot. It’s worthwhile to a lot of people to keep this pristine.”
A half- mile down the road from Madden, Debbie Miele-Wen and her sister Margaret Miele worked another section of shoreline, removing trash.
“We live in the community and have done this for 10 years,” Miele-Wen said. “I have a million things to do at home, but this a way of helping out. I was raised in the time when you didn’t throw anything out the car window.”
As a duck f lew close by overhead, Miele-Wen looked up and smiled.
“One morning a year is not much,” she said. “You enjoy it and you get to see all this nature.”