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You Never Know What You Are Going To Find Hackensack
Riverkeeper® Wraps Up Season of Successful Clean-Ups By Lisa Ryan It’s time to take a look back at all the exciting discoveries that were made in the murky depths of the awesome Hackensack during river cleanups this year. It all began in April at Overpeck Park in Leonia, where volunteers found two fully intact if waterlogged pocketbooks. The contents of both were still readable, and the owners of the purses were contacted, to their great delight. As these happy reunions of purse and owner took place, what to our wondering eyes should appear - not one, not two, but three canoes coming across the river bearing refrigerators! Now that really says something about the dedication and commitment of our volunteers! The final find of the day was a 50 gallon drum of an unknown substance, and the local police and Bergen County HazMat were called into action. The next several cleanups yielded the standard melange of cans, bottles, bicycles (about six at Foschini Park in Hackensack alone!), car and truck tires, shopping carts, construction debris, itsy bitsy bits of styrofoam, and balls of every size, shape and color. One tireless volunteer actually collects them, and washes and sanitizes them before donating them to a local animal shelter! Thanks to the purchase of a used tractor that was made possible by a grant, large and heavy items were removed from the river as well. At a recent cleanup at Laurel Hill County Park in Secaucus, creosote-soaked telephone poles, railroad ties and other large pieces of wood–even a BarcaLounger®–were removed from our waters, making them safer for aquatic life and for the humans who recreate there as well. The cleanup season ended back in Overpeck Park in Leonia on October 15, only 12 hours or so after those endless days of rain and flooding we had. The park was littered with debris from high waters, and volunteers filled two 17-yard dumpsters with assorted oddities, including a huge pollution boom that was rendered useless by time, and the lovely mermaid pictured above. The most amazing thing about the river cleanups is the volunteers. They get up early and commit a day of their lives to getting all mucky in a river that needs all the friends it can get! There are many folks who have come to almost all the cleanups for five years now, and the numbers keep growing. We hope you will join us at some cleanups next year and search for your own treasures!
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