NC Geocachers and Elon University's Alpha Phi Omega Join Forces

NC Geocachers group

Pickup of NC Geocachers and Alpha Phi Omega fraternity event

About 40 members of the NC Geocacher Organization joined with 15 pledges to the Alpha Phi Omega National Service Fraternity at Elon University at the shoreline of Wilderness Island on Sunday, April 15.  Trash and tires were removed around two coves facing out toward the Haw River Arm.  The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and CJL combined to ferry the trash back to a boat ramp for disposal.  Take a look at that boat load of stuff that should never end up on a lake's shoreline, especially a lake that is heavily used for recreation and is a public water supply! This same area of Wilderness Island was cleaned by CJL volunteers in October 2010.  So this follow up event gives an idea of how fast  trash gets redeposited as result of rainfall events flushing it into Haw River upstream. About 200 volunteers were needed in October 2010 to remove 700 bags of trash and 600 tires that had accumulated over decades.  Now, 1 1/2 years later, only 61 bags of trash and 11 tires needed to be removed.   The hope is that we have entered a "maintenance mode" wherein volunteers can keep up with the annual accumulation of trash.  Nevertheless, the task is daunting and we thank volunteers like those NC Geocachers and Alpha Phi Omega pledges for making progress possible!