The Franklin Reporter & Advocate Eight Villages, One Community
A number of environmental groups from the township and New Brunswick – including the Franklin Township Environmental Commission – gathered April 12 at the Mile Run entrance on Hamilton Street for their annual stream clean-up.
As usual, volunteers carried bag after bag of trash, and some household goods, away from the stream bed.
But Stanislav Jaracz of the Environmental Commission said there was some good news: not as many tires were recovered as in years past.
They also didn’t find any guns, he said.
Among the items that were collected were bottles and diapers, and other household trash, he said.
“They go through the headache of putting garbage into plastic bags, like a real, not grocery plastic, but a real one,” he said. “And they dump them here as opposed to properly route them for disposal.”
“I would call it very, very successful,” he said. “It was still drizzling when we came around 8.45, 9 a.m. But the moment we started, we realized it’s actually not even raining. It is moist, it’s slippery, and we didn’t have any injuries, any incidents. So we are very fortunate and we are very grateful for people of Franklin and New Brunswick for participating.”
Accompanying Jaracz was his daughter, Martina Martina Jaraczova, a sophomore at Franklin High School, and a member of the Environmental Club.
“I like seeing it all nice and clean after we come here,” she said. “I like to help.”
Jaraczova said she encouraged her friends to come out and help.
“Because we need more helping hands to make a difference, and so if other people come then they’ll know that doing this cleaning up is a thing we need to do because there’s just so much garbage everywhere and it kind of allows them to see what is really out here,” she said.
Erin Maguire, the Recycling and Clean Communities Coordinator for New Brunswick, said her group regularly supports the clean-up.
“We come out every year to help clean up the Mile Run Brook,” she said. “It’s a place where there’s a lot of illegal dumping, so we take the time to make sure that we come out and clean it up once a year.”
“It’s of utmost importance because it’s right next to a stream,” she said. “And the more trash that gets into the Mile Run Brook, the worse quality of water we have.”
Heather Fenyk, from the Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership, said her group was there “to bring attention to opportunities for stewardship for stream health in the Lower Raritan Watershed. Opportunities for partnership between municipalities, organizations, to come together to give a little bit of love to our local streams for Earth Month.”
“So we’re coming out in partnership and coming out really to make sure that folks realize that our green and blue spaces are places that are all of ours to enjoy, but also all of ours to clean up and take care of,” she said.
“This is we call a gift that keeps on giving, in terms of the amount of trash that comes out of this,” she said. “Today was was typical, I’d say, of the amount of debris we see down here, except we’re seeing a reduction in the amount of construction dumping, which is just wonderful, and I think people are realizing that they no longer can do that without penalty,” she said.
In addition to the Environmental Commission and Lower Raritan Watershed Partnership, groups participating in the cleanup were the New Jersey Americorps Watershed Ambassadors, the New Brunswick Environmental Commission, and the Friends of Mile Run Brook
Here are some scenes from the event:
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