To the editor:

Clean Rivers Month 2016, the entire month of April, is a community effort to clean up around the Blackwater and Nottoway rivers.

This 15th annual cleanup will be accomplished by teams and individuals going out on our rivers, streams and ditches, parking lots, yards and other locations, picking up litter, trash and other junk.

To date, we have removed more than 89,000 pounds of trash from our little piece of the world. Clean Rivers Month is a great opportunity for folks to contribute to the health of the community we live in.

As always I will have litter getters and bags for those who need them. Teams or individuals can pick their own locations or I can find them one. Look for places where roads cross a stream, places where the trash could be carried into the rivers.

If you pick your own location, it is very important that you let me know where that is so I will not send another team there. My advice is to go ahead and start looking around at river and swamp bridge crossings or ditches in your area as a place for you or your team to clean up.

Teams can pick a day or days during the entire month of April. Teams need to keep count of bags and participants, totals of tires collected and so on and send that information to me after the cleanup.

Make note of your “most unusual item found,” and be sure to take pictures to send to me. More details will follow when you sign up. Email me at blknotkpr@earthlink.net or call me at 562-5173 to get signed up.

This is a great community event to get involved in. Please mark the month of April on your organization’s calendar.

Jeff Turner

Blackwater-Nottoway Riverkeeper