2013 Clean Virginia Waterways

Our Clean Virginia Waterways litter cleanup event this morning was supported by three Virginia Master Naturalists, at least a couple of FoPSP members and 17 other area residents, including seven students from an ecology club.  It was frosty until the sun hit the grass, but windless, so there was no bite to the air and mist was rising from the water.  Several brave souls went out in watercraft to scour the shoreline of the lake, while the rest explored the trails and wooded areas in the area of the boat launch.  When everybody had returned with their collected items, we had six bags of trash, weighing around 18 pounds.

Our efforts are just a tiny part of the International Coastal Cleanup sponsored by Ocean Conservancy and coordinated in Virginia by Longwood University.  The end result is not just a cleaner park and lake, but the prevention of this litter adding to contamination of the Chesapeake Bay and of course the Atlantic Ocean.  The staff of the Pocahontas State Park and the coordinators at Clean Virginia Waterways pass along their thanks for our participation.