THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, June 28, 1996 TAG: 9606270162
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: LEE TOLLIVER
LENGTH: 68 lines
It seems like only yesterday when Robert Dean came into The Beacon office to ask if his idea of a coastal cleanup effort was a good one.
The outgoing city councilman thought that organizing groups of people to clean certain areas of shoreline would be beneficial in that it would get trash off the beaches and marshes and bring attention to the waste that was being discarded around our precious waterways.
Darned right it was a good idea.
So The Beacon ran a small story to get the word out, Dean got television and radio involved and Clean the Bay Day was founded.
That year - 1989 - 2,000 volunteers cleared 52 miles of shoreline of nearly 60,000 pounds of debris.
Dean was amazed.
This year, 4,319 volunteers worked nearly 200 miles of shoreline and pulled a record 364,700 pounds of trash. That comes to a record 1,824 pounds of trash per mile. Another record of 95 pounds of trash per volunteer was produced this year.
That all sounds like some pretty good accomplishments and in many ways it is.
But in more important ways, it is quite alarming.
Why - after seven years of spreading the word, after taking nearly 1.5 million pounds of trash off our shorelines - haven't people changed their ways?
``I'm at a total loss as how to motivate people to stop dumping trash wherever they want to,'' said Dean, a member of the Virginia Beach Clean Community Commission. ``And it's more the simple, small, minute things that cause more of the problems. Like the person at a stoplight who empties an ashtray on the side of the road, it rains the next day, and it all ends up in the bay.
``It's like taking your trash can across the street and dumping it in your neighbor's yard.
``You dream of the day when Clean the Bay Day won't be needed anymore. But it just doesn't seem to be going that way.''
While there are some amazing things found along our waterways - stuff like refrigerators, ovens, washing machines and tires - a vast majority of trash collected reflects an incredible lack of respect from the very people who depend on the waterways the most.
Recreational boaters and fishermen - both recreational and commercial - are some of the worst perpetrators.
And what makes matters worse is that the same group of people never seem to be around when cleanup time arrives each year.
``We get a very, very poor turnout from those people. Especially the ones with the small boats that you see on the water every day,'' Dean said. ``We have to rent small boats to get people out to the marsh islands to clean them up. We could really use a good turnout from those people and they could make a difference.''
And by seeing the damage caused by either themselves or their peers, they might just realize that keeping their trash in the boat until they get to a dockside trash can is the better way to go.
And maybe, Dean's dream of the campaign he started seven years ago finally coming to an end will become a reality. ILLUSTRATION: Photos by LEE TOLLIVER
Steve Pahno, left, and Harvey Caldwell, just a couple of the 4,319
volunteers, clean along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay.
The cleanup effort on 200 miles of shoreline produced a record
364,700 pounds of trash - or a record 1,824 pounds of trash per
mile. Another record of 95 pounds of trash per volunteer was
produced this year. by CNB