In the last two months, Green Towson Alliance (GTA) volunteers have cleaned out 6.75 tons of trash from local streams in Towson neighborhoods. Everything from car bumpers, cinder blocks, chairs, seats from cars, a table umbrella, a shopping cart, a 10 foot length of steel pipe and a downed power pole to a 100 pound truck tire, street signs and a framed picture were removed, along with the usual array of hubcaps, glass, plastic bottles and aluminum cans. One group of GTA volunteers found an illicit discharge site into the stream and reported it to the authorities.
Working in partnership with the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, GTA coordinated clean-ups of local Towson streams at 21 sites from late March through early May. Over 400 volunteers cleaned up the streams and cleared away debris and litter to save mature trees and restore the natural beauty of the local streams. Invasive vines were also cleared away at two locations, to help save mature trees in the watershed.
Volunteers, including Towson University students, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Youth Group members of the Towson Presbyterian Church and the Woodbrook Baptist Church, students from Loyola Blakefield’s Environmental Club, community residents, county and state elected officials and GTA members, spent over 100 hours cleaning up local Towson tributaries at 21 different stream locations. The streams included branches of the Herring Run and the Jones Falls/Lake Roland tributaries from Towson Run and from Roland Run.
Green Towson Alliance, a non-profit collaborative coalition of local Towson area environmental volunteers, works to make Towson neighborhoods healthy and green by planting trees, cleaning up streams, and removing vines that are strangling trees as it works towards its goal to encourage green open space in Towson’s communities.