On the cold, blustery morning of Saturday, November 27th, Save The Great South Bay partnered up with Keep Islip Clean to conduct a clean up at the headwaters to Champlin Creek. Champlin Creek is one of the 50 creeks across the South Shore that lead into the Great South Bay. It’s headwaters go as far north as Central Islip just behind the industrial park. This was our first time in the area and there was a lot of work to be done.
There are 50 creeks leading into the Great South Bay. Map provided by South Shore Estuary Reserve.
The Debris Haul
Over the course of just a few hours, a small team of volunteers collected 55 black contractor bags of trash a pool ladder, small propane tank, one round picnic table top, one glass table top, tabletop of a pingpong table, 4 tires, lots of plastic buckets, toilet bowl (ugh!), very old suitcase, almost 400 small vacuum tubes and 8 truck tire inner tubes.
We collected over 1,000 lbs debris out of the Creek. – Bill Raftery, Keep Islip Clean crew leader
Tracking Trash with Clean Swell
In collaboration with the Ocean Conservancy, we used the Clean Swell app to track over 1,000 lbs debris taken out of the Creek and its beds which is immediately uploaded to Ocean Conservancy’s global ocean trash database. These data deliver a global snapshot of ocean trash, providing researchers and policy makers insight to inform solutions. That is all trash that would eventually make its way to the Great South Bay.
This area was a disaster. In just a few hours, we had it cleaned up. – Andy Mirchel, West Islip Creek Defender
Start Where You Stand – Volunteer Here
There’s more work to be done along Champlin Creek and others. We are here to Start Where We Stand and do our part to clean our waterways to protect the Great South Bay. If you would like to join our crew of volunteers on a future clean up, click here.
