This is a view of upper Buzzards Bay and the three areas we swept.
The photo is of a wonderful model of Buzzards Bay and its
watershed at the Coalition for Buzzards Bay's new headquarters
on the New Bedford waterfront. (If you haven't been there yet, I highly recommend it.
The model and other exhibits are fascinating and educational.)
Led by Barry Denham of the towns Highway Department, four people from Mattapoisett --Patricia and Carl Sharpe, David Olney, and Judith Titus -- covered almost all the inner harbor beaches and some others out toward Strawberry Point (on the left in the photo above).
In Marion, at center above, 27 people -- including teachers and students from Tabor Academy -- cleaned up Silvershell Beach and all of Planting Island. Nicole Long, spouse of a Tabor staff member, once again organized the school's effort on Planting Island, with help from Jane Pucello, who runs the school's Community Service program.
Over in Wareham, on the right above, Karin Osmond led 14 people as they swept Little Harbor Beach (just to the left of the Canal breakwater), and a family covered the beautiful beach at Onset (just off the photo on the far right).
The biggest group of people was from Tabor Academy in Marion. Two faculty members (with their children) and 15 students -- some from as far away as Vietnam, Taiwan, and the People's Republic of China -- made it a truly international event, and the kids were interested to learn that people in their countries were doing the same thing on their shorelines and beaches on the same day. Together, they picked up detritus from the public beach at the Planting Island causeway and worked their way all around the island -- about 1.5 miles. All in all, the students and faculty (and faculty kids) picked up 977 pieces of trash weighing 220 pounds.
Nicole Long organized the Tabor effort, which also included faculty member Mary Kate Moniz; Nicole's spouse Eric; who works in the admissions office; and a parent (Bob Benner, father of Nora, who drove down from Concord to be with his daughter for the day).
Here are some pictures of the Tabor group:
Standing in back row:: Eric Long (faculty) with daughter Grace, Nick Boynton,
Mary Kate Moniz (faculty), Peter Teague, Hsing-Han (Hank) Huang,
Asa Smith, Nora Benner, Robert Benner (parent)
Standing in 2nd row: Hieu Nguyen, Ivy Helena Torres, ZiCheng Lin,
Peinying (Helen) Huang, Charlotte Williamson.
Front row: Lucas & Paige Long (faculty children), Holly Francis, Zinu Fu
Missing is the instigator, Nicole Long, who apparently doesn't like limelight!
Missing is the instigator, Nicole Long, who apparently doesn't like limelight!
Spanish teacher Mary Kate Moniz with student Asa Smith
Holly Francis of Marion
Nora Benner with her father, Bob
Some students taking a break half way through the morning.
Nick Boynton and Hieu Nguyen collect trash
blown into the beach grass on Planting Island causeway
Peinying (Helen) Huang and SiCheng Lin
Hsing-Han (Hank) Huang and Peter Teague
check the Planting Island Cove side of the causeway
Some of the Tabor students also spotted many chunks of what looked like tar with sand and pebbles embedded in them, some of which they took back to school to analyze in the chemistry lab. These chunks, they learned from teachers at the beach, were left over from the oil spill on 27 April 2003 when a barge ran aground off Fairhaven and spilled 98,000 gallons of #6 fuel oil into the bay. The oil polluted more than 90 miles of coastline, killed at least 450 federally protected birds, and temporarily shut down about 180,000 acres of shellfish beds. Seven years later, we are still finding evidence of that disaster on all the beaches of Buzzards Bay. Parts of the Bay may take decades to recover, especially the marshes.
Marion: The Silvershell Beach Crew
In addition to Tabor, a number of people from Marion and the surrounding towns picked up 774 pieces of trash -- over 90 lbs. -- on Silvershell Beach. 600 of those pieces were cigarette butts.
It isn't that beach-goers smoke so much. Many of those probably came from street run-off, which eventually goes into streams in the area, which lead to rivers, which lead to Buzzards Bay. That means if you throw a cigerette butt out your car window on I-495 in Middleboro (15 miles inland, but still in the Buzzards Bay watershed area), that cigarette will eventually end up in Buzzards Bay and possibly on the beaches of Marion like Silvershell. It's also very possible marine animals will eat the butt, causing death or illness.
If you want to read more about ocean trash and its effects on the marine environment and its creatures, see the December 2010 issue of Cruising World magazine. It's horrific.
Here's the Silvershell team:
Eunice Manduca, who for years has made it her vocation to pick up
trash every day as she walks around Marion
and patrols the waterfront as Wharf Master,
trash every day as she walks around Marion
and patrols the waterfront as Wharf Master,
brought the wooden trash collector she designed and built.
That's a Sippican Lands Trust hat she's wearing.
Sue Maxwell Lewis of Marion is pretty certain what she did that
beautiful morning is important and makes a difference.
beautiful morning is important and makes a difference.
Claudia and Josh Bender came all the way from New Bedford
to help pick up trash in Marion. Good for them!
Daughter and mother team of Leora and Ellen Mackey --
all the way from Natick -- were a huge help, picking up 15 lbs. of trash.
Mattapoisett: A small and very thorough sweep
Barry Denham, who runs the town's Highway Department, led four others as they cleaned up a number of the town's public beaches. Together, they collected 326 pieces weighing 45 lbs. from about three miles of beach. They won the award for the most unusual thing found -- the sofa noted above.
Judith Titus of Mattapoisett, seen here at the town beach on
Water Street, picked up a LOT of stuff, including
some unidentifiable metal building materials.
She's also the one who found the sofa.
Wareham: Little Harbor Beach Crew
Finally, over in Wareham at Little Harbor Beach Karin Osmond led a team of 11 people, plus a family of three who drove over to Onset to pick up that secluded beach. Between those 15 people, they picked up 593 pieces of trash weighing about 190 lbs.
Little Harbor Beach looking south toward the Canal.
Little Harbor Beach in Wareham sits at the very NE end of Buzzards Bay, right next to the west entrance to the Cape Cod Canal. Thus, during the summer with its prevailing strong southwesterlies, the beach is a collection point for tons of seaweeds (including much eel grass) and trash that blows up the bay with the wind and current flowing toward the canal. Unfortunately, much of the detritus gets mixed in with the seaweed
and is therefore difficult to find and extract. It was blowing very hard (25 - 30 kts.) from the SW the day of the cleanup, and had been for several days. In the photo above, you can see the result.
Karin Osmond (left), Wareham Coordinator, with friend
Two of the Little Harbor crew sweep through some of the
beach grass immediately behind the beach.
Some of the Little Harbor crew: Karin Osmond, Carolyn Patterson,
Lisa Jacques, Jim Seamans, Barbara Crouss,
Gary Osmond, and Richard Mathis
(I don't know who is who in the photo.)
It's a wrap, for now
We don't know yet how the cleanup effort went in the rest of Massachusetts or around the world. The Ocean Conservancy (www.oceanconservancy.org) will probably issue its final report with all the numbers sometime in March of 2011.
If last year is any indication, we ought to expect over 400,000 people from 104 countries around the globe to have participated. Together with them, last year we picked up over 6.8 million pounds of trash. It sounds like a lot, but it isn't -- only a tiny percentage of what's still out there. Will we beat those numbers this year? We hope so because all of this human-made throw-away stuff has a major negative impact on the health of our oceans, bays, sounds, rivers, lakes, and ponds. We put it there. We ought to pick it up.
