Our planet's clean water supply is a topic of great importance to Team EJP and all of humanity. Without clean water, we can't function. As technology has made strides over the past few centuries, that great natural resource has been placed in peril, through draining aquifers, storm water runoff, water pollution and other mechanisms. The recent push for water conservation and reduction of watershed pollutants and erosion has led local groups all over the country to work for better preservation of this vital natural resource.
Springfield, Vermont's Pollution Problem
Kelly Stettner was walking along the Black River with her family on a beautiful day in 2000 when she noticed a large amount of trash in the river. She recruited a few of her co-workers and her family into doing what they thought was a one-time cleanup of the river, removing garbage, tires and even a dozen shopping carts before the end of the project. But what started as a one-time project quickly became an annual event when one of her co-workers asked if they were doing "that river thing again."
Black River Action Team (BRAT)
From that initial cleanup attempt came the Black River Action Team, which focuses on cleaning and monitoring not only the river, but the surrounding watershed as well. The team grew as more of the community came together to take care of their river. Lucy Georgeff and her young daughter Eva take water samples from the subsidiary Mile Brook every month to check for new contamination in the river. The pair began their duties out of Lucy's concern for her family's health. Allan Berggren, a local retired ear, nose and throat surgeon, regularly surveys the river, providing visual inspection and mapping as the team looks for areas that need additional work.
What BRAT Does
BRAT provides vitally important work on the Black River and its related waterways, including trash cleanup, water quality testing and stream bank stabilization. In addition to removing the trash from the stream and monitoring the water, stream bank stabilization helps prevent erosion, which can cause problems as the runoff soil clogs streams and causes problems for marine wildlife.
Chemical Dumping
The town is also the home of Jones & Lamson Machine Company, a closed factory that is considered one of the most complex brownfield sites in Vermont. It has already been found to contain lead, asbestos, chlorine, solvents, PCBs and similar compounds both inside and outside of the building -- even in the soil around it. BRAT is monitoring the water near the site to verify whether the groundwater is being contaminated from the soil and whether those contaminants are moving into the groundwater and the river system from there.
Team EJP, Certified Erosion Control of NH and BRAT
While BRAT was determining how to better educate the community about threats to the watershed, Team EJP and our vendor partner Certified Erosion Control of NH have been happy to provide assistance in the form of a couple of workshops. These workshops were designed to educate people about water resource protection technology and best management practices, helping to ensure that the hard work that BRAT does to keep the river clean continues. Because the volunteer community is learning how to better manage the watershed, they're able to move on from simply cleaning up trash to monitoring water quality, educating the public and encouraging the community to get back to enjoying the river.
At Team EJP, we're proud to support active community groups like BRAT and hope their hard work will continue to benefit our waterways. Please contact us for more information on how we help groups like BRAT.
Photo Credit: Black River Action Team
