On Earth Day morning under fast clearing skies I paddled down the Nashua River in Lancaster, MA towards where large amounts of plastic trash have been snagged by fallen trees across the river. The area is a couple of miles downstream from the "Meeting of the Waters" where the north branch from the cities of Leominster and Fitchburg joins with the south branch from the town of Clinton to form the Nashua River. Previous attempts at removing this trash have hardly made a dent due to the limited capacity of my kayak and the distance between the fallen trees and the boat launch on Rt. 117. However, on this occasion, Kurt Schuffels of World Farmers, Flats Mentor Farm allowed me to launch my boat from the farm's riverside property placing me closer to my objective. Additionally, Todd Olanyk of MassWildlife allowed my use of a landing spot on the property of Bolton Flats Wildlife Management Area, and also handled disposal of the collected trash. Their help allowed me to make a bigger dent in getting plastic trash out of the river.
Water levels in the river had dropped to 2.3 ' on the gauge at Pepperell and were close to ideal. This photo shows one of the larger snags as it looked on April 10th when water levels were higher...
My landing spot at Bolton Flats WMA...
...where I was able to unload my boat 3 times rather than just once.
The net result was this pile...
...which included 139 plastic bottles, 243 "nip" bottles, 10 glass bottles, 10 cigarette lighters, and miscellaneous flotsam including several "ducky race" escapees. Mrs. Trashpaddler and I then counted and bagged the trash for later disposal by MassWildlife...
This Earth Day that had started cloudy and cool was now in the mid 70s F with plenty of sunshine.
...where I was able to unload my boat 3 times rather than just once.
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