On October 5, nearly 1,000 people will once again turn out for the annual tennessee river rescue, scouring banks as well as the water's depths for trash that accumulated since last year. This year the volunteer effort celebrates 25 years and Christine Bock has been there since the beginning, helping ensure that the city's greatest natural asset remains clean and safe.
Were you already a cyclist before joining the bicycle patrol and if so how long have you been riding?
No. Serving as a bike patrol officer for 15 years has launched my interest in cycling outside the department.
What was the catalyst to get the Tennessee River Rescue going and how did you personally get involved?
A local environment group named Earthworks used to meet monthly to discuss issues. they entered a boat race to float down from Chickamauga Dam to ross's Landing. when they saw the trash around ross's Landing they decided to do a cleanup like Ocean Conservancy had done on shorelines. It was a grassroots effort to work on a problem. I was part of the group since the beginning, so it is cool to see how far it has come.
For anything to continue 25 years is a stretch, especially an all-volunteer effort. What has kept this going and growing throughout the decades?
the river is alive and we feel we are helping it. working along a shoreline puts you right in touch with nature you often see animals that live in the water. you can see visible results from your actions that day, so you feel that you as an individual are making a small difference. and then realizing that 800-plus folks are doing this at the same time, you are part of a larger thing. we have dedicated zone leaders that come back every year. we have many local companies that donate money for shirts or Dumpsters, others provide services, such as boats and what they can do. many, many people pitch in to make this event work and now it seems to have a life of its own. and we welcome new people every year.
Many school groups, scouts and other organizations are involved in the cleanup now. How many people were part of the early efforts and how has the overall awareness and involvement helped to improve the cause?
We have had girl and boy scouts every year and they are great! It is a great team project and we like them to go to the parks where the areas are larger to work. this event is a community service project so we can verify their involvement. we have some high school classes in Bradley County and signal mountain and many zones do water quality tests. those results are on our website after the event at tennesseeriverrescue.org.
Is there a noticeable difference in the amount of trash and quality of the water and landscape over the years as you go back to clean up each year?
I jokingly say we have less furniture, but possibly we have less access for dumping sites. we report areas that appear to be dumps and try to take action. any trash bags with letters or addresses in them are reported. we have noticed the amount of tires going down slightly. there is a charge to take tires to the landfill, so that may be why tires are found. the zone leaders collect the tires and put them on a trailer and have them recycled. most people have a trash service, so if someone does not have that or can't afford that, they have to put trash somewhere.
How much trash do you guess you've pulled from the river and its banks, and what is the absolute worst or weirdest item you've come across?
It is hard to say how many pounds of trash, since we started with cleaning a few areas and now we have 23 zones this year. that is 23 Dumpsters that get filled, and a large trailer of tires.
Every year we have "Best Piece of trash" for each zone. the scariest trash was an undetonated explosive device that was found in one of the zones and we had to call the bomb squad. we have also found dentures by the divers. I liked an old cooler that the river reclaimed and made into a nice terrarium with mosses and plants. We have a pollution tank in the tennessee river gallery at the tennessee aquarium. small things can end up in that tank.
Are there certain places that year in and year out are the absolute worst places along the river for trash? If so, where are they and do you know why they persist?
There are places where the river turns and that changes the velocity of the water and things can collect along the banks or areas that become shallow at the bend. there are some areas around the rowing center that are hard to reach by foot and we stay away from that area since they have a rowing event there every year on the first saturday of October. there is a boat ramp on Highway 41 that used to have a Dumpster, but since it has been removed, we find a lot of trash. I would like us to solve that problem. If the folks that fished and boated and used the river respected it, maybe they would not litter. But I think ultimately, we will have to replace some kind of trash receptacle to get the problem solved.