The Chemung River is cleaner and safer thanks to 16 students and two staff from the Spencer-Van Etten Middle School who cleaned up more than 700 pounds of trash on Friday, from the Wyncoop Creek (Route 427) Boat Launch in the Town of Chemung.

The cleanup was organized and supervised by Karen Charneski, the events and education coordinator for the Chemung River Friends, an Elmira-based non-profit organization that promotes and protects area waterways.

The students from the school’s civics class, and their teacher, Chris Dodd, did the cleanup as part of a community give-back project. They spent three hours cleaning the launch on the Chemung River beneath the highway bridge that carries Wyncoop Creek Road to Route 427 and the rutted dirty access road to the launch.

The kids were amazing workers, never slowing down, complaining or reluctant to fight their way through thick Japanese Knotweed, briars and leg-tripping underbrush to get to trash, some of which, had been there for years. They competed to see who could pick up the most trash and the most unusual items – the winner was a broken mud-coated vacuum cleaner. A rusty car chassis came in second but was to large and too deep in the brush to be removed.

As the students walked, they used hand-clamp grabber sticks to pick up the garbage, stuff it in trash bags, load it in the back of a pickup truck and unload it all in a large pile that was later loaded into a dump truck and disposed of by Town of Chemung employees.

The garbage included: tires, car parts, garden hoses, child’s car seat, cushions, toys, stuffed animals, cans, bottles, food and beverage containers, bottle of motor oil, scrap iron, wooden portable stage sections, broken glass, scrap wood, fishing bait containers, corrugated plastic sheets, yard wastes and plastic and foam debris.

Sadly, some people use boat launches as dump sites, especially the people who use and enjoy the sites for fishing, boating, picnicking and other outdoor activities. It creates a sickening mess that is hazardous to humans and wildlife, and it’s tossed several yards from the river, a source of much of the public’s drinking water.

Unfortunately, there will always be thoughtless and uncaring people who will illegally dump trash and litter boat launches and other scenic areas in nature.

Fortunately, there will always be good people, like the kids from the Spencer-Van Etten Middle School, who will clean up that trash and share their knowledge of the importance of protecting our environment.

I say, “thank you” and “great job” to the students, their teacher and Chemung River Friends.