You drink it. You clean with it. You shower in it. You swim in it. You fish in it. You have fun in it.
Can you guess what it is?
Sometimes it is sparkling, shimmery and clear; but unfortunately, sometimes it is dark, murky and has debris floating in it. Yuck
It is water! It’s sad how litter and debris can transform something so wonderful, like water, into something so disgusting. I don’t know about you, but I am not really interested in swimming, boating and playing around in water that is polluted. I certainly don’t want to drink it.
Water — well, actually, clean, clear and healthy water — is something that we take for granted every day. To ensure we have water for drinking, swimming in and a variety of other uses, we have to protect our local waterways. Your chance to make a difference and help keep Liberty County’s waterways clean and healthy is coming up this month.
The health of our local creeks, streams, rivers and even the ocean is determined by the choices we make every day. So this month, make a choice to volunteer on Saturday, Oct. 25 for the ninth annual Rivers Alive events, coordinated by Keep Liberty Beautiful.
Rivers Alive is a statewide effort to preserve and protect Georgia waterways. Rivers Alive events also are part of The Ocean Conservancy’s international efforts. Each year in Liberty County, we try to schedule our main Rivers Alive cleanup day to fall on national Make a Difference Day, which is always the fourth Saturday in October. This year, that’s Oct. 25. Liberty County’s Rivers Alive project is a registered event for this national volunteer initiative.
The health of our waterways depends on us. During our Rivers Alive cleanup, we will stop litter in its tracks at over 40 locations in the county. Trash that begins its life as litter in Liberty County’s west end is just as devastating as trash tossed from a boat into the Intracoastal Waterway. Unfortunately, trash travels.
We have cleanups throughout the county because our community is full of water. Actually, about 40 percent of Liberty County is wetlands, marshes, creek, streams and rivers. It is crucial to stop litter before it makes its journey downstream. We like to catch litter before it ends up in deep rivers and the ocean, where trash retrieval becomes a challenging situation. Litter anywhere in our county threatens our community’s water.
Our goal is to have more than 550 volunteers this year. Last year, we had 576 and with your help, we can surpass that. We already have over 350 volunteers registered at this point, including a number of organized groups. Thanks to all the folks who already have signed up to volunteer, but we still need more. By giving just a few hours of your time on a Saturday, you can make a powerful difference where you live.
Oh, and don’t worry — we will make sure you are finished before any big, televised football games start!
Thanks to our sponsor, SNF Chemtall, we try to make these cleanups enjoyable, too. We will have official Rivers Alive T-shirts for the first 500 volunteers registered, and they are going fast. We also provide all the cleanup supplies for our hardworking volunteers. SNF Chemtall provides a fabulous cookout lunch at Riceboro Creek Park on Highway 17 South after the cleanups. We really appreciate Chemtall’s support, because these cleanups would not be possible without them.
So, plan to make a difference and commit to helping by calling Keep Liberty Beautiful at 880-4888 or emailing klcb@coastalnow.net. If Oct. 25 does not work for you and your group, we can schedule a cleanup date that suits your schedule. From Walthourville to the Atlantic Ocean, our waterways need you. Do not take clean water for granted; join us for Rivers Alive.