{"id":756,"date":"2016-07-18T11:23:00","date_gmt":"2016-07-18T15:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/water.phila.gov\/blog\/boats-powerful-tool-fight-against-litter\/"},"modified":"2022-12-03T13:14:43","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T18:14:43","slug":"boats-powerful-tool-fight-against-litter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/water.phila.gov\/blog\/boats-powerful-tool-fight-against-litter\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia Water, On the Water: Boats a Powerful Tool in Fight Against Litter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Left
\nLeft to Right:<\/strong> Lance Butler, Dimitri Forte, Declan Patterson, and Richard Anthes. Philadelphia Water\u2019s Watersheds Field Services Group deploys a fleet of three small boats to reach trash in waterways that others can\u2019t. Credit: Brian Rademaekers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

During a typical litter-hunting trip in early June, Philadelphia Water\u2019s Lance Butler was operating the department\u2019s new 20-foot workboat along the banks of the Schuylkill River just below the Fairmount Water Works. Edging the bow of the craft just close enough to the rocky embankment, Butler made it possible for his three crew members to scoop up the otherwise unreachable trash that peppered the water and shoreline.<\/p>\n

This was the workboat\u2019s maiden voyage, and it was already proving to be an invaluable tool in the department\u2019s fight against floating litter.<\/p>\n

The activity attracted the attention of a young man sitting on a nearby bench. Within a few minutes,\u00a0he approached the boat and asked Butler a question\u2014could he have a trash bag?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat for?\u201d Butler asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo pick up trash,\u201d the man replied. \u201cIt\u2019s such a beautiful park.\u201d<\/p>\n

An hour later, Butler and his crew\u2014referred to within department as the \u201cWatersheds Field Services Group,\u201d and, less formally, as \u201cthe skimming guys\u201d\u2014were on the opposite side of the river, their boat growing ever-more crowded with bags containing the typical flotsam of plastic bottles and bags, Styrofoam cups and other debris that had washed into the breathtaking waters below Fairmount Dam.<\/p>\n

On the other side of the river, the spontaneous volunteer was still at it, his bag of litter now bulging to the point of overflowing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat guy,\u201d Butler said, \u201cis amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keeping Our Waters Clean <\/strong><\/p>\n

That guy also wasn\u2019t alone in noticing the Philadelphia Water staff and the long, polished workboat, which has a large blue-and-white decal along each side proclaiming the craft\u2019s mission: \u201cKeeping Our Waters Clean.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the day warm enough for sunbathing on the lawn of the Schuylkill Banks park, many people were out enjoying the river\u2019s beauty and taking advantage of the nearby trails\u2014and many people stopped to wave at the crew, thanking them now and then for keeping the waters clean.<\/p>\n

Butler, an aquatic biologist and manager of Philadelphia Water\u2019s Environmental Restoration & Maintenance Program, was joined on the water that day by Declan Patterson, a Drexel University student working with the Office of Watersheds through a co-op program; Dimitri Forte, with the Watershed Field Services Group; and Richard Anthes Jr., an environmental scientist with the Office of Watersheds\u2019 Ecological Restoration Group.<\/p>\n

By the end of the day, the workboat, which had launched at 9 a.m. sharp from Fort Mifflin, near the confluence of the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, was packed with full 55-gallon trash cans and overstuffed clear plastic trash bags, the collected litter sorted into recyclable and non-recyclable items.<\/p>\n

\"One
\nOne of six 55-gallon trash cans of litter pulled from the Schuylkill River during the maiden voyage of Philadelphia Water's new workboat.\u00a0 Much of the trash is plastic water bottles.\u00a0Credit: Brian Rademaekers<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

While impressive, the haul of 210 pounds\u00a0was standard for a day on the river. Similar collections take place about two to three times per week, March through October, on the tidal sections of Delaware and Schuylkill. Further upstream, a 22-foot pontoon-style skimmer boat takes on trash in the shallower waters during weekly trips.<\/p>\n

Last year, the pontoon vessel alone removed nearly four tons\u2014that\u2019s 8,000 pounds and 10 full Dumpsters\u2014of this type of trash from Philly\u2019s riverbanks and waterways.
\nA third boat, the 32-foot R.E. Roy, also helps to (among other things) keep trash at bay, collecting 29,000 pounds of trash from our large tidal rivers in 2015.<\/p>\n

So far in 2016, Philadelphia Water boats have collected 4.8 tons of trash during 72 trips (50 days on the Schuylkill and 22 on the Delaware). Among the trash collected, recyclables accounted for over 40 percent of the weight, or nearly 2 tons.<\/p>\n

All of this is done under Philadelphia Water\u2019s little known but important Marine Debris and Floatables Management Program. Understandably, many people don\u2019t think of litter collection when they think of work done by their water department.<\/p>\n

In reality, the Marine Debris and Floatables Management Program is built into the regulations and permits<\/a> that allow Philadelphia Water to maintain a vast network of stormwater and sanitary sewers, waste treatment plants, and more.<\/p>\n

The Fight Against \u2018Floatables\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Rick<\/strong><\/p>\n

\nRick Anthes skims the water by the Fairmount Water Works, collecting hard to reach trash from the Schuylkill River. Credit: Brian Rademaekers <\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t heard the term \u201cfloatables\u201d before, think of the trash like plastic bottles, cigarette butts, plastic bags and discarded wrappers that you likely see on city streets every day. Up there, it\u2019s just your run of the mill (depressing) litter. Once rain washes this buoyant stuff into our waterways, it gets categorized as floatables.<\/p>\n

Because floatables can sometimes find their way into rivers and creeks by travelling through one of Philly\u2019s 75,000+ storm drains first, controlling this trash is considered to be a part of combined sewer system maintenance for Philadelphia and other cities, like New York<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For the same reason, combined sewer outfalls\u2014places where combined sewer pipes empty into waterways\u2014can be floatables hotspots and are often targeted by Philadelphia Water boats during trash skimming patrols.<\/p>\n

The boats play an important role in a much bigger effort to remove litter and other debris from our waterways, an effort that includes work ranging from inspections done by our Inlet Cleaning crews, which hit about 275 storm drains each day<\/a>, to the heavy lifting of the Waterways Restoration Team<\/a>, which removes \u201ctrash\u201d as big as abandoned cars while doing tasks like repairing eroded streambanks.<\/p>\n

Outside of Philadelphia Water, volunteer cleanups play a huge role, engaging citizens in watershed stewardship and extracting mind-boggling volumes of trash annually.<\/p>\n

For example, Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful<\/a> reported a total of nearly 1.3 million pounds of trash removed by 29,259 volunteers during 1,003 cleanups along the Schuylkill River in 2015. Those figures include volunteer events like the popular Schuylkill Scrub, organized by the Schuylkill Action Network, and tally trash collected from the headwaters to all the way down to Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Thank you to all the #volunteers<\/a> who joined us to clean up the #DelawareRiver<\/a>! #CleanWatersPHL<\/a> https:\/\/t.co\/iLYwyrtiw7<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Philadelphia Water (@PhillyH2O) July 15, 2016<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n