Phyllis Saroff has sworn off plastic water bottles.
The Sierra Club volunteer spent Monday morning fishing countless bottles — along with Styrofoam cups and used tires — from the banks of Church Creek in Annapolis and has vowed to find another way to consume water.
“I drive over it all the time, and I didn’t know it was such a mess,” Saroff said of the small creek that flows quietly under the Aris T. Allen Boulevard and into the South River.
Saroff was one of about 35 volunteers who turned out to gather trash from the river, answering President-elect Barack Obama’s call to spend Martin Luther King Jr. Day performing community service.
Volunteers from the Sierra Club and the South River Federation, which organized the cleanup, filled garbage bags with mufflers and broken car headlights, chairs, Realtor signs, and of course, bottles. A few residents heaved large truck tires up the embankment, as others pulled small pieces of trash from the frozen grass, all as cars sped down the highway above them.
“If anybody throws anything, it ultimately ends up in the river valley and in the [Chesapeake] Bay,” said David Prosten, chairman of the Anne Arundel chapter of the Sierra Club.
The ills of Church Creek are mirrored in the dozens of small streams and rivers feeding into the Bay, said Diana Muller, who serves as the South Riverkeeper, an advocate affiliated with the national organization Waterkeeper Alliance.
Runoff from developments such as Annapolis Towne Centre flow directly into Church Creek, bringing with it sediment, trash and nutrients that are choking the waterway, Muller said.
“As a microcosm, this is what is causing the problems in the Chesapeake Bay,” she said. “This is where you have to start.”
Environmental groups often hold stream cleanups, but word of this event on Martin Luther King Jr. Day spread quickly and drew an eager crowed, Prosten said.
“It’s something that gives you a clear result that you’ve done something,” he said.
For Annapolis resident, Steve Hocking, the stream cleanup could become annual tradition.
“We are trying to get back into the spirit of MLK Day,” said Hocking, who volunteered with his daughter, son and nephew ages 12 to 14. “For us, that’s helping to protect the environment.”
