Nashua River and Hazardous Waste

I've been collecting trash and whatever else I find on the rivers for about 6 years now. Each week I put trash by the curb, recycling every other week, and I am able to take the tires and propane tanks to my local recycling center, and they know what I'm doing so they let me get rid of those for free. But over time, I accumulate a lot of hazardous household materials.

In the past I would participate in the occasional town-wide hazardous waste days, which amounted to waiting in a long line of cars for hours then paying to dispose of whatever it was you had.

Recently, the Devens HHW (www.DevensHHW.com) opened, and having a shed full of used motor oil, anti-freeze, brake fluid, and a host of other unidentified gifts from the Nashua River, I went down there.

I had some correspondence with the director there, and fully expected an inconvenient experience. But when I arrived, I was greeted by the friendly staff, they inquired about what I had, and did all the work. I of course, asked whether they could cut me a break because a good deal of what I has was obviously from the river, but they're independently funded and had no such provisions.

I gladly paid to be rid of the materials (and have some space in my shed back) and I was off. But basically I paid someone else's disposal fee. It wasn't a fortune, my bill was $60, so about $30 would have been for the river stuff. I'd asked the Nashua River Watershed Association if they had any such programs to help volunteers, but sadly, no.

So here's a question for the readers. Would any corporations be willing to create a small fund for the disposal of waste pulled from rivers. I'm not quite sure how the whole thing would work, but perhaps the funds could be used at the discretion of the DevensHHW and other facilities. I might think a company like @CleanHarbors would be interested. Any takers?

Kayak Season Opener

Well it was a long winter with everything freezing solid just after Thanksgiving and so much snow, the boat ramps were in accessible, but the season is finally here. Sure, I'd been out once in March, but I consider this past weekend the true beginning of the season.

I made 2 trips. On Saturday, I went to the Oxbow National Wildlife Refuge in Harvard, MA. I chose to go upstream from the landing to see the state of things. Overall, not too bad. There are a couple of good sized piles about a mile up, and I worked on those, but I think in general, it's less than most years.

On Sunday, I did a combination bike/kayak trip leaving my bicycle at Rte. 117 and putting in at the site of the old bridge on Rt. 70. There's a new sign saying that it will be the future site of a canoe launch. That will be great, as that's a tough spot to drag your boat through. There was plenty of materials on this stretch, but the current was really strong so a few areas would have been dangerous to try to clean up, and a lot of debris was pushed up over the banks. There was one portage, so there is one large blow-down to cut through at some point.

All in all, great start to what I hope will be a long season of paddling.

Habitat for Humanity Day with The Pedowitz Group

Hi folks, Many of you know I switched jobs at the beginning of the year, I moved from Brainshark to The Pedowitz Group. I don't really use this blog to write about work, but this is a little bit of an exception.

Today, I'm joining the Pedowitz team in Atlanta, GA to work with Habitat for Humanity. It's great to work with an organization that is committed to giving back.

I'll take some pictures and hope to share those with you later.

Trash Paddler

Nice to see my Assabet River counterpart, the Trash Paddler is still at it, as am I. I realized I hadn't posted anything since spring. I'll post some more photos soon, but if you have time, check out what the Trash Paddler is doing.

Earth Day

I’d like to see Earth Day moved to a fixed day like the 3rd Saturday of April, for instance. I think when it falls on a weekday that leaves people to think that they missed it. Well Earth Day is pretty much every day for me so I don’t really pay it much attention.
Saturday I did one of my regular semi-annual projects. I take my wheelbarrow and walk up my street to the town forest and collect trash along the way. It’s probably only about a mile or so of road, but it’s a common littering spot.
The wheelbarrow was full and I headed back to the house by 8:30, then I took my daughter to her Earth Day fundraiser on the town common and went kayaking.
I hadn’t been to the Oxbow at Depot Rd. yet this year and wanted to check up on it. When I go there, an officer from the environmental police showed up. We chatted for a few minutes about the state of the river and what needs to be done. He said there are only about 70 officers state-wide. I was surprised, figuring it would take many more than that.
He went on to explain that they really don’t focus on the illegal dumping sort of stuff – which probably makes up a significant part of what I am dealing with. Rather, they focus on the businesses that violate the laws as there’s money to go after. They also don’t spend any time on the rivers.
Anyway, I paddled downstream toward Rt. 2 to find out what the condition of that stretch of river was. Not bad, on the whole. When I got near Rt. 2 there were 3 tires, but other than those, there were mostly just bottles and cans. I piled a tire on the stern and then tried something I hadn’t – I put another tire on the bow – a tricky maneuver, but it worked. I had to balance the laundry basket on the rear tire, so for the remainder of the trip I had to be cautious about that.
I only made the 1 trip as my shoulder’s been sore and I had a number of other things to do, but next time I know what to expect. All in all, the Oxbow’s not in bad shape – a bit of a surprise considering all the flooding we’ve had.

Nashua River - Flood Stage

I went out on the Nashua River saturday - technically I guess it is at flood stage. It was very fast - when I went from Pepperell to Rt. 225, the water was doing something I'd not seen before.
Looking at the river from the downstream side of the 225 bridge, there were rapids. Not huge rapids, but waves with white water. Very strange for that part of the river. Just upstream from that the water was unusually fast - virtually impossible to paddle upstream. So, I got to hit the rapids downstream ;-)
All in all, still a good day, some new debris, and I picked up a good bit of it, but always more - especially when there is flooding like there has been.
Well, looks like more rain on the way, we'll see what that brings.

Kayak Season Opener

I declare kayak season is open! Yesterday I put in on the Nashua River at the Pepperell/Groton line. The water was still pretty high from the previous week's rains, but not too bad.
I wasn't sure what to expect in terms of trash... typically after a flood, there's a ton of trash in the river, but not this time. I paddled from Pepperell up to the Boathouse and back and only collected one basket full of trash. No tires. No hazardous or nasty stuff. Just some bottles and cans and cups.
Nice day, the river's in good shape, and kayak season is here... all is right with the world.