THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, June 16, 1994 TAG: 9406150191
SECTION: SUFFOLK SUN PAGE: 12 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: 940616 LENGTH: Long
Armed with long, pointed sticks and blaze orange trash bags, the volunteers scoured the shoreline, picking up beer cans, fast food trays, plastic motor oil bottles and hundreds of cigarette butts.
{REST} Saturday was the sixth annual ``Clean the Bay Day'' in Hampton Roads, and this year, for the first time, the Ruritan clubs of Driver and Bennetts Creek sponsored a beach cleanup effort in northeast Suffolk.
With a couple of dozen club members and other volunteers, a canoe and several small boats, the group scoured two different sites.
Working from boats, some volunteers edged north along Bennetts Creek, beginning at Bennetts Creek Park on Shoulders Hill Road.
The land crew fanned out along the shoreline north and south of the fishing pier on Tidewater Community College's Portsmouth campus in Suffolk.
The 15 volunteers who met that morning at the fishing pier, dressed in jeans, sturdy shoes, and gloves, were a mixed group, ranging in age from 9 to 70.
Some were fishermen; some environmentalists. Others were just eager to do what they could to make their world a little cleaner.
Appalling to all of them was the amount of trash littering the rocks along the shore.
From the water, the shoreline appears clean. But close up, the view is entirely different.
``This is incredible,'' Judi Caron said as she pulled rags and scraps of plastic from the rocks.
``I don't know how much comes in off boats or from the land, but it is all here.''
Caron, a Bennetts Creek resident who teaches sociology at Norfolk State University, read about the cleanup project and showed up to help with a friend, Bill Sheppard.
Sheppard, also a Bennetts Creek resident, is a shipfitter at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. Both are members of The Sierra Club.
``I am concerned because I just like nature and what it provides,'' Sheppard said.
The volunteers worked in pairs, one picking up trash and the other recording the amount and type of litter they found.
Bay Day volunteers use a standardized data card developed by the Center for Marine Conservation in Hampton to tally the debris collected.
Totals from the cards indicate the most serious litter problems and often offer clues to the source of the pollution problem.
The Clean The Bay Day committee considers the data collection to be crucial to the project.
While trash collection is a temporary solution, organizers hope the data can lead to permanent remedies.
At the TCC site, discarded beverage cans seemed to be everywhere.
``I have seen at least 50 cans so far,'' Berry Hightower said, indicating a 30-foot stretch of shoreline.
Hightower is a Bennetts Creek Ruritan member who lives in Western Branch. He spent the morning with his wife, Barbara, cleaning up along the river shore.
Everything from planks of wood to old crab traps, soiled baby diapers, fishing line and plastic bait bags littered the shore.
But the most prevalent items besides beer and soda cans were cigarette butts and fast food wrappers.
``People using this area and getting the benefit of it should be taking care of it,'' said Luther Alston, a Bennetts Creek Ruritan.
As noon approached, the volunteers gathered their booty.
The land crew had filled 42 bags with 1,372 pounds of trash.
The boat crew contributed another nine bags of trash weighing about 200 pounds.
Altogether, the Suffolk volunteers cleaned up about two miles of shoreline in three hours.
In spite of tired backs, a few bruised ankles, and an encounter with a trio of snakes, the volunteers were pleased with their results.
``It is a tremendous effort for the citizens of Suffolk, and I am really proud of these guys,'' said Robert Dean, Clean the Bay Day chairman.
Dean, of Virginia Beach, organized the first Clean the Bay Day in 1989. An avid boater, he was alarmed at the increasing amount of waste entering the Chesapeake Bay.
``After six years, we had hoped that the Clean the Bay Day would work itself out of existence,'' Dean said. ``But the numbers are not going down.
``We are quickly approaching the collection of one million pounds of debris in six years,'' he said. ``With more than 50 percent of that being lightweight plastic, you have an indication of the volume collected.
``The secret is in educating the children. We need to change human habits if we are to avoid environmental disaster in the future.''
{KEYWORDS} VOLUNTEERS POLLUTION ENVIRONMENT CLEAN UP CHESAPEAKE BAY
by CNB