by Michael White |
A string of ominous clouds and subsequent downpours didn’t stop more than 100 volunteers from doing their part to clean up Patchogue River on Saturday.
In total, five teams retrieved 527.5 pounds of trash.
The weigh-in and after-party happened at Blue Point Brewery, which last year conceived of the now annual event with Fire Island National Seashore.
“The rain didn’t keep these dedicated volunteers from having fun while helping out,” National Park Service park planner and lead organizer Kaetlyn Jackson told GreaterPatchogue, the cleanup’s media sponsor.
The crews — which included Patchogue-Medford High School and St. Joseph’s College students — gathered at 10 a.m. at the Watch Hill Ferry Terminal before fanning out and collecting garbage until 1 p.m.
Patrick Keefer, 32, of Patchogue, was among the volunteers. Also a vendor, he was distributing free Long Island Fun Pass discount cards to those assembled before collecting trash himself.
He and his family live just a few blocks away from the terminal.
“We were here last year, my wife, our baby and I,” Keefer said. “We just thought if people were going to come out and do a cleanup in our own neighborhood, we needed to do our part.”
Last year’s inaugural event developed out of conversations between Nicholas Rosenberg, an environmental health and safety manager at Blue Point Brewery, and FINS staffers.
Rosenberg had stopped by FINS HQ to talk about a joint project.
“We’ve been wanting to do more sustainability initiatives at Blue Point,” he said.
He and Jackson began organizing the cleanup.
The assistant superintendent for Fire Island National Seashore, Kelly Fellner, who was also on hand Saturday, said the cleanup is a nice opportunity to mark National Public Lands Day locally.
“Folks across the country are helping out their communities, whether at local parks, national parks, or forests, doing things like this,” she said. “We’ve always done something, usually on Fire Island, but then the folks from Blue Point came in [the office] one day …”
Among the volunteers who took to the river by boat was Don Wachsmuth.
He cruised alongside Coast Guard and NPS boats, as well as stand up paddleboarders from Moku Loa Paddle Tribe of Oakdale.
Wachsmuth, who moved to Patchogue some 15 years ago, said he’s out picking up discarded trash from streets and parks within the village every day.
“I can’t walk by it,” he said.
He’s also a member of the Protecting the Environment in Patchogue (PEP) Committee, among other volunteer and civic roles.
“This is in line with what I like to do,” he said. “I walk my two dogs before work … You wouldn’t believe what I find. Diapers. People sit and change their baby in their car and throw the diaper out. Cigarette packs. Beer cans. And water bottles.
“A lot of water bottles.”
Photos by Michael White, Elizabeth Rogers, Kaetlyn Jackson and Patrick Keefer.
