Every fall, after the swimming, boating and fishing season comes to a close, communities all over the country join together to clean up their neighborhood river in a nationwide event known as Big Sweep, River Sweep or Beach Sweep. The High Country proudly does its part to clean up both the Watauga and New Rivers every September. This year, we had a record number of people participating in the Watauga River Big Sweep. We are very thankful to them for all their hard work and dedication. Here is what was accomplished:

Totals:
172 Volunteers picked up 6,000 + pounds of trash including 16 tires, 2 lawn mowers, a mattress, a picnic table, car parts, chairs, clothes, sheet metal, lots of beer bottles and cans, lots of plastic bottles and shoes.

Most polluting item: full bag of fertilizer in the water, radiator fluid, 1/2 full can of bug spray
Amount Recycled: approximately 250lbs of glass, aluminum, and plastic

Awards:
Largest item - “shanty town” - apparently a group of folks built an entire”village” out of trash on the side of the Watauga river in Foscoe.
Most Reusable item - dog toy
Most Peculiar item - homemade looking “bomb”

Partners:
River and Earth Adventures, Appalachian Angler, Watauga River Anglers, Foscoe Fishing Company, Upper Watauga Riverkeeper, Watauga River Conservation Partners, High Country Waste Solutions, GDS, PACT, Footsloggers, EarthFare, Mast General Store, Watauga County Sanitation, Watauga County DOT, Valle Crucis Community Park, Watauga County Cooperative Extension, ASU Outdoor Programs, ASU Geography Club, ASU First Year Seminar Students, Teaching Fellows, The Outdoor Residential Learning Community and The ASU ACT program, and many more community volunteers.

Here is a short little 5 minute video of the crew who picked up around Laurel Creek Falls and along Section 3:

And here is a link to our 2009 Big Sweep photo gallery (more…)

In the past 30 days, the crew here at Appalachian Voices’ Watauga Riverkeeper program has been investigating some construction sites to analyze their impact to our mountain trout streams. We have conducted on-site inspections and documented what we found using three tools:
1) The Muddy Water Watch online site report card to report our findings to regulatory authorities;
2) The IM Rivers Muddy Water Watch mapping site to post pictures and illustrate where the sites are located; and
3) YouTube to create a video documenting what is happening.

Here is the video that our new Watauga Riverkeeper Assistant Eric Chance created:

If you see pollution anywhere in the Watauga or Elk River watersheds please give us call at 828-262-1500 and if you like our work we would love to have you as a member of Appalachian Voices.