Community Corner
ZAP 50 Seeks Thousands Of Volunteers For Blackstone River Cleanup
On Aug. 27, cleanup organizers want 10,000-plus people to return to the Blackstone for an enormous litter pickup.
WORCESTER, MA — Fifty years ago, some 10,000 people lined the banks of the Blackstone River for a cleanup of epic proportions.
When the anniversary of that 1972 ZAP the Blackstone event this year, local river keepers want to exceed that number of volunteers for another historic cleanup on Aug. 27.
The organizers behind ZAP 50 — the semicentennial of the 1972 event — have identified more than 80 cleanup sites along the river, and about 50 of those sites are still seeking volunteers for this month's anniversary clean. Those sites include areas along the river itself, but also brooks and streams that feed the river.
Some groups will soon begin handing out supplies in advance of the event. Organizers behind the Grafton Land Trust and Grafton Garden Club's cleanup of about eight Blackstone tributaries will start handing out supplies to volunteers on Monday, according to Donna Williams of the Blackstone River Coalition.
There are plenty of other volunteer opportunities along the river in every city and town from Worcester and Millbury to Blackstone and Douglas, and into Rhode Island. Find a full list of ZAP 50 volunteer events here.
The first ZAP event came about after ecologist David Rosser began drawing attention to the extremely poor condition of the Blackstone. In 1971, he estimated about 53 percent of the river was sewage, not to mention chemical contamination from scores of factories along the river. Soon after, the Clean Water Act went into effect, bringing federal attention to the river.
During the first ZAP event on Sept. 9, 1972, the thousands of volunteers helped remove an estimated 10,000 tons of garbage — from small debris to items like cars and mattresses — from and area between Providence and the Massachusetts border.
Fifty years later, the Blackstone isn't quite safe for activities like fishing or swimming. But it's much cleaner after upgrades to sewage infrastructure across the region. Volunteers actually hope to pull much less trash out of the river during the Aug. 27 clean — a symbol of the river's progress over the past half-century.
"We don’t want 10,000 tons. Zero would be awesome, but we’re not there yet," Keep Blackstone Valley Beautiful Director Donna Kaehler told ecoRI earlier this month.
