Join the Raritan River Cleanup On Saturday, April 22

NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ - The annual Stream Cleanup by the watershed watchdog Raritan Headwaters has been expanded to include the city of New Brunswick this spring, thanks to a generous Blue Water Project grant from the Royal Bank of Canada. Over 1,500 volunteers will be mobilized by Raritan Headwaters on Earth Day – Saturday, April 22 – to pick up trash and litter along the Raritan River and its tributaries at over 50 sites in Somerset, Hunterdon, Morris and Middlesex counties.

With support from the grant, approximately 200 of those volunteers will help clean up the riverbank near Frank Deiner Park in New Brunswick, which is littered with tires, plastic bags and other debris. The elevated park operated by Rutgers University overlooks Rt. 18 where it crosses the Raritan River. To join the New Brunswick cleanup, contact Angela Gorczyca atagorczyca@raritanheadwaters.org or 908-234-1852 ext. 315.

Raritan Headwaters will join forces with Rutgers and the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership to connect with a diverse population of New Brunswick residents and encourage them to join the Deiner Park cleanup.

“We’re very excited to add New Brunswick to our list of cleanup sites,” said Cindy Ehrenclou, executive director of Raritan Headwaters. “We are happy to make this important connection in one of our downstream, urban communities. Trash and litter on the riverbank is a threat to drinking water quality and a hazard to wildlife, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. The volunteers who lend a hand in New Brunswick will have an impact greater than they might imagine.”

Raritan Headwaters’ Earth Day Stream Cleanup is an enormous initiative that each year removes tons of trash and debris from riverbanks and stream corridors in New Jersey towns, cities and suburbs. In 2016, more than 1,300 volunteers removed 14 tons of trash from 52 stream locations across three counties.

The largest watershed organization in New Jersey, Raritan Headwaters has been working since 1959 to protect, preserve and improve water quality and other natural resources of the Raritan River headwaters region through efforts in science, education, advocacy, land preservation and stewardship. RHA’s 470-square-mile region provides clean drinking water to 400,000 residents of 38 municipalities in Somerset, Hunterdon and Morris counties and beyond to some 1.5 million homes and businesses in New Jersey's densely populated urban areas.

For a map of RHA’s other Stream Cleanup sites, go to the Raritan Headwaters website and click on the “Volunteer Now for Stream Cleanup” link.

To learn more about Raritan Headwaters and its programs, please visitwww.raritanheadwaters.org or call 908-234-1852.