Proper tire discarding
The Scenic Cities Beautiful Commission, a joint agency of the city of Chattanooga and Hamilton County, has the job of identifying sources of litter and working to change attitudes regarding waste disposal. SCBC’s Jeannette Eichelsback points out that tires are accepted at three local refuse collection centers, and residents may drop off as many as four at a time free of charge.“Tire retailers charge the customer a disposal fee for taking tires to the transfer station on Standifer Gap,” Eichelsback said. “Our biggest tire dumping problem is secondary tire retailers who fraudulently collect the disposal fee, then dump the tires, pocketing the fee. We know that they are coming from tire retailers because they have been taken off the rim by mechanical means. We can tell by the cut on the tire. Also they have been hash-marked in white.”
For the past 26 years, hundreds of volunteers in the Chattanooga area have walked, canoed and motorboated to the shores of the Tennessee River and several other feeder creeks and streams to remove trash.
That will happen again on Oct. 3.
Twenty-three zones in Bradley, Hamilton, Rhea and Marion counties have been selected for the annual Tennessee River Rescue. There are six motorboat zones, three for canoes and one for divers, with the rest being cleared by foot. Volunteers will meet at 9 a.m. and be given trash bags (provided by the Tennessee Valley Authority) at the various zone locations.
"We had 815 folks come out in the four counties (last year)," said Christine Bock, the Tennessee Aquarium's lead horticulturist and one of the event organizers.
Volunteers are requested to spend at least two hours removing items that are not natural to the shores.
"Every year, we see progress and feel the trash is less," Bock said. "The tire numbers have slowly diminished, except the past two years we noticed large dumps of tires in a couple of areas. We had more tires than last year because of the three dumps with 296 tires."
The zones with large tire numbers were Spring Creek in East Ridge, North Chickamauga Creek at Thrasher Pike and South Chickamauga Creek at Camp Jordan Park.
"We are looking into this problem and trying to find solutions to stop it at the source," Bock said.
Said Nancy Brice, another coordinator: "We are still getting a lot of tires. They are in different areas than they have been. We will clean up one spot and they will find another spot to dump them."
Scuba divers will search the TVA swimming area near Chickamauga Dam. Judy Yancey, captain of that zone, said she expects six to eight divers to comb the bottom.
"We find a lot of beer cans, bottles and solo cups. We have found false teeth, boat anchors and shoes, car batteries and garbage cans," Yancey said. "You just never know what you will find."
Last year, Brice said, "Most of us did not really get anything that was really unusual. We did get a lot of styrofoam. One year at Harrison Bay we found a kitten and a puppy living in a tire. We got them adopted, and the puppy was named River."
Brice expects about 25 sponsors to cover the cost of garbage bin service and other supplies. Sponsors' names will be printed on the back of T-shirts given to each volunteer who works at least three hours.
East Ridge resident Larry Clark has been giving his time to the annual event since 1988, serving as a zone captain for the Spring Creek area many of those years.
"We have removed about 350 to 400 tires since 2006 in the Spring Creek area," he said. "We find old stoves, refrigerators, all kinds of toys. I am not surprised anymore as to what we find."
He recalled finding an automobile from 1950 buried in the mud.
"All that was left of it was the frame and chrome bumpers," Clark said. "Most of the other metal parts had rusted away."
He said his zone's volunteers regularly include "a large group of ROTC students from the East Ridge High School. They will just work their hearts out. They are not afraid to get muddy. The other group is the Boy Scouts. They are always big helpers."
The young volunteers, he said, "always leave with the question of 'Why would people throw trash in the water?'"
After serving nine years as a captain for the Suck Creek zone in the Tennessee River Gorge, Sarah Quattrochi pointed out that the volunteers "love to see the immediate impact of their hard work. At 9 a.m. the river banks and creek beds are typically filled with trash. By 1 p.m., they are clean and clear."
Quattrochi, who has worked for the Tennessee River Gorge Trust since 2007, believes there is a bright side to the River Rescue.
"It is disappointing that we have to do this work year after year, because not everyone appreciates our amazing natural resources and takes responsibility for their own trash," she said, "but it is heartening to see families, corporate citizens, students and individuals coming out to make a difference.
"You protect the things you love, you love the things you know, and you know the things that you are taught to understand. Tennessee River Rescue gives our community the chance to understand why it's so important to keep our waterways clean and to give them a tangible opportunity to help make it happen."
Visit tennesseeriverrescue.org for information.
Contact Gary Petty at sports@timesfreepress.com