The Berkshire Environmental Action Team, or BEAT, has been holding regular cleanups of the Housatonic River with the Housatonic Valley Association for years.
“When we first started doing this, they were finding just so much trash," said BEAT programs director Chelsey Simmons. "It was just like, no matter how much, how many cleanups we would do, there was still so much trash being taken out. Every year, the piles of trash have gotten smaller.”
Last year, the cleanups were cancelled due to heavy rain that raised the river level to dangerous heights.
“This year, we've been just really excited that the weather and the water has been good for us to actually get in and pull things out," Simmons continued. "Just this year we've removed 15 shopping carts from the river. We've removed several bikes, over a dozen large contractor bags, just of miscellaneous trash, also hundreds of plastic bottles of varying size, and also just material that it’s made out of.”
“You wouldn't believe some of the stuff that we put on the river," said Christian Sullivan, a student at Bowdoin College in Maine and a summer intern for BEAT. “We've gotten tons and tons of small alcohol nips. It's definitely some of the things we see most often. And then cans and more routine stuff. And then, actually, last time we pulled out an old oxygen tank, and then we find tires, tons of larger stuff. Typically, we have canoes to help us pull out some of that larger stuff, but there's definitely some pretty large stuff that you don't see typically.”
While the Housatonic is more widely known for being polluted with forever chemicals by General Electric out of a Pittsfield plant during the 20th century, Simmons says the impact of removing basic waste from the waterway is notable.
“Just less trash," she told WAMC. "You have these things breaking down in water that contain chemicals and other really harmful things for the environment and also the wildlife, and so that's really like, the big goal, is just getting these things out so that the water is cleaner and the river is healthier, and people can also just be proud of this natural resource that we have flowing through our city.”
“A lot of these rivers and streams are important cold-water fisheries, so removing debris like that opens up some important habitat for fish," said Sullivan. "If you have cans and things like that, it can be imposed threats to habitat. And then beyond that, I think the recreational aspect is really important. The Housatonic should be an asset for Pittsfield and not something that's viewed as a polluted waterway, and I think cleaning up and doing our best to preserve that waterway for the city just increases the amount of time people want to spend at a park and want to engage with a river like the Housatonic.”
Saturday’s cleanup, the last of the summer season, will focus on the area around Riverway Park on Dewey Avenue. The public space sits in Pittsfield’s Westside neighborhood, the historic heart of the city’s Black community, and was opened in 2021 after a 14-year gestation period.
“We're going to use canoes to just create barges and pull out trash from further down in the river and bring them up and just kind of keep doing that, because the last two we've done this year, it's really just been focusing on going to mainly like bridges and areas around bridges and pulling out shopping carts and other items, because it seems like that's usually an area where things are getting dumped," said Simmons.
“We have waders and we have hip boots for folks to use, which can help you stay dry, but also just kind of protect you from if there's any wire in the river when you're pulling out, like wire fencing, anything like that," she explained to WAMC. "The river, again, isn't very high this year, so it really won't go past folks’ waist or hips, and we have gloves. We ask people to wear closed-toed shoes and just prepare in that way.”
BEAT and the HVA’s Housatonic River cleanup at the Westside Riverway Park in Pittsfield starts at 9 a.m.
