Twenty community-caring people, including a group of freshmen from Hamilton College volunteered over the weekend for 7 1/2 hours to pick up 21 bags of the winter’s trash, tires, paint cans and metal that were thrown on the Chenango Canal Towpath Trail and roadside of Canal Road, Bouckville.
This annual NYS Canal Clean Sweep event, sponsored by Parks and Trails New York and the NYS Canal Authority, was part of a state-wide volunteer clean-up of canal trails and parks. Local organizations such as the Chenango Canal Association have participated in this for 18 years, with people coming from Eaton, Hamilton, Morrisville and Bouckville to help out.
It was a perfect day to do this.
Unfortunately, on Saturday night someone else purposefully drove their car into the piles of bags that were placed on the side of Canal Road for the Canal Authority to pick up and spread it around again for us. You can see tire marks in the picture at one of the sites.
On Sunday, after picking up another section of canal, two of us discovered this, sighed and stooped to pick it up again. As we drove along Canal Road, we came across two other cars from Southern Madison Heritage Trust who were told of our problem and came along to help.
What good neighbors! They were picking up another two miles of Rt. 12B that day, already. With their help, we were able to take the trash bags elsewhere so it can’t happen again.
Another spring Clean Sweep is behind us…two times over. Enjoy the Towpath Trail