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You load 14 tons and what do you get? A cleaner Neponset River
By adamg on Thu, 10/06/2016 - 9:32pm
Among the items volunteers pulled out of the Neponset and its banks in Hyde Park during an annual clean-up drive on Sept. 24: Two cash registers (empty of cash), a Boston Herald honor box dumped near the river in 1995 (based on the date of a newspaper still inside it), a house oil tank, a wheelbarrow, computers, a highway sign, 12-foot sections of iron fencing, baby potties, TVs, radios, cinder blocks, bricks and other construction material, 18 shopping carts, 49 tires and lots of spaghetti that appeared to have been recently made.
Volunteers told the Hyde Park Neighborhood Association that, in total, they bagged and hauled away 14 tons of refuse dumped into a river and along river banks that, for many years some local companies and residents treated as a cheap dumping ground.
Association members and a community organizers from the Southwest Community Development Corp. got into a brief heated discussion over the hillside of discarded food, plates, trays and cans behind Le Phare church on River Street, with the organizer complaining it was unfair to even discuss the stuff without letting the church respond.
Association President Barbara Baxter, who worked on the cleanup, agreed to let the church speak on the issue at a future meeting - all they have to do is call her, she said.
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Comments
Question
If this is an annual thing, why did they only now find a 21 year old newspaper box?
(Not trying to be snarky, I think it's great these folks are helping make their neighborhood better... just curious)
They do it piece by piece
Also, it is tidal - meaning the sediment depth can change in a given area year to year.
The Neponset is tidal? You're
The Neponset is tidal? You're not from here, are you? (Hint - Lower MIlls)
Um, wut?
Does the term "estuary" mean anything to you? Salt marsh?
https://www.neponset.org/your-watershed/natural-history/
Vast majority of Neponset is not tidal
Few miles of estuary downstream of Lower Mills. The rest of its almost 30 mile length not salt marshes nor tidal.
They clean
different sections every year. Thank you to them!
Suggestion for dealing with Le Phare Church
Invite them to an early Thanksgiving dinner and play Alice's Restaurant.
DCR employees sometimes add to the problem
Two years ago during the week New Years fell, I was walking in Pope John Paul II park and noticed a tire (with a piece of rope tied to it) in the water but close enough to the edge that I could pull it out. I pulled it out and dragged it up to the edge of the pedestrian path where it would not be in the way but would be easy to staff to notice and pick up.
On the same walk from a distance I saw the DCR pick-up truck stop, pick up the tire and huck it back into the river! They had a freaking pickup truck with them, how hard would it have been to throw in in the bed of the truck and deal with it properly?
Anyhow, I circled back, pulled the tire back out of the Neponset and then dragged it by that piece of rope 100 yards (200 yards??? no idea) up to the little picnic area on top of the tiny 'hill'. There are trash barrels up there so I knew maintenance would go there eventually. But it'd be too far from the river for them to toss it back in easily.
The tire stayed up there for months. Eventually it was gone but no idea if dealt with properly.
I tried to figure out how to lodge a complaint but ran out of steam.
Church mess aside- thanks to the volunteers
Thanks to the volunteers who braved poison ivy and helped clean up the river. Rivers are a beautiful part of our world, and should be cherished, not trashed.
tons
I love these pop culture references. Who else would know Tennessee Ernie Ford's "16 Tons"? The erudite references are equally cool. Thanks, Adam!
Merle Travis's ...
Sixteen Tons (sung by Tennessee Ernie Ford and many others). ;-)