Sewickley Creek Watershed Association celebrated Earth Day 2006 by participating in the third annual statewide cleanup effort promoted by Keep PA Beautiful and the PA Department of Environmental Protection on Saturday, April 22nd.  As of April 21st, 449 cleanups were scheduled statewide for Earth Day 2006 with 31,725 volunteers, 13,077 of which are under 18 years of age. 

    Last year, 140,000 volunteers statewide cleaned up more than 11,000 miles of roadways, 12,000 acres of parkland and 3,500 miles of streams.  Collectively they picked up over 3,602,000 pounds of litter that thoughtless individuals discarded.  Sewickley Creek’s Executive Director, Tom Keller noted, “It’s a shame we have to clean up the same areas of the watershed every year just because people don’t think about the problems that litter causes.  We would much rather use our volunteers’ time to plant trees and repair stream banks.”

     SCWA focused their efforts this year on illegal dumps and littered roadways around Youngwood and Armbrust.  Forty-one volunteers turned out in spite of the rain and collected approximately 135 bags of trash as well as a set bed springs and mattress and several tires.   Volunteers included scouts, church groups, 4-H members, local residents and members of SCWA and PA CleanWays.  The cleanup was a partnership effort with PA CleanWays, PA Resources Council, the Borough of Youngwood and area merchants.  Starbucks provided coffee to kick off the day and Jioio’s Family Restaurant provided pizza for lunch.  Youngwood’s Mayor Joan Derco organized her own work crew and invited all of the volunteers to get together for lunch at the Youngwood VFD’s facility.  New Stanton and Youngwood Sunoco stores and the Youngwood Sheetz store provided bottled water and soft drinks for the volunteers.  We are very grateful for all of this year’s sponsors and encourage our members and readers to support those merchants as well.