For Immediate Release
Date: September 24, 2013

Volunteers are needed to help with the Hayners Creek Rivers Alive Cleanup as part of the continuing statewide campaign to clean and preserve over 70,000 miles of Georgia’s rivers and streams. The effort will be part of Rivers Alive, a joint program of the Environmental Protection Division Outreach Programs and the Keep Georgia Beautiful Foundation.

Volunteers in Savannah will stage their cleanup at 8 a.m. on Saturday, October 19, 2013 at the Rivers End boat ramp, at 10 Rivers End Dr. Volunteers can bring their own boat, canoe or kayak, or one will be provided for them, and all volunteers receive lunch and t-shirt. They will be joining an estimated 30,000 other volunteers statewide participating in the annual river cleanup. This fall over 200 cleanups will collect trash and similar debris in streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands and the ocean from the Conasauga River in North Georgia to the St. Mary’s River in the South.

“Each year we return to cleanup this same stretch of Hayners Creek, and each year we pull a dumpster full of everything from tires, plastic bottles, and Styrofoam cups, to car batteries, vacuum cleaners, and toys from the river and marsh. Rivers Alive not only makes an immediate difference in this waterway, it’s also an important opportunity for us to educate the public about larger problems of pollution in our community” said Margosia Jadkowski of the City of Savannah.

During the 2012 river cleanup 29,300 volunteers cleaned over 2,100 miles of waterways and removed over 360 tons of trash and garbage from Georgia’s waterways during the State’s and one of the South’s largest volunteer efforts to beautify water resources.

To volunteer for the Hayners Creek cleanup, contact Margosia Jadkowski at 912-651-6943 or mjadkowski@savannahga.gov. For more information about efforts in other areas or the statewide campaign, go to www.riversalive.org.