GREENFIELD — The sound of the Wheeler Brook’s soft trickling filled the air, accompanied by the smell of damp moss and falling leaves.
There was almost no indication that human civilization existed just a mile from this woodland sanctuary — except for the hundreds of smashed beer bottles strewn along the brook’s edge.
About 200 students from Four Rivers Charter Public School and Greenfield Middle School kicked off a weekend of river cleanups Friday, breaking up into groups and scouring litter from the Green River and its tributaries – all of which eventually drain into the Connecticut River, the object of this weekend’s 22nd annual Source to Sea watershed clean-up organized by the Connecticut River Conservancy.
“It’s always good to help the environment,” said Caleb Bird Richards, a seventh-grader from Four Rivers and a member of one of the five-person teams cleaning the Wheeler Brook.
Saturday, the effort will continue as volunteers at the 15th annual Green River Cleanup, hosted by the Deerfield River Watershed Association, look to keep the source of 35 percent of Greenfield residents’ water clean. The Green River work is part of the larger Connecticut River watershed project that involves thousands of volunteers in Vermont, New Hampshire, the Pioneer Valley and Connecticut, all pulling tons of garbage, appliances, tires, cars, and other refuse from the banks of the rivers.
So it was that on Friday, with black trash bags, rubber boots and gloves, these Greenfield students got a head start.
Only a quarter of a mile from where they started cleaning, the students’ bags were already full of trash. Leaving the full bags on the side of the road to retrieve later, they went on hunting for garbage — abandoned articles of clothing, plastic and paper bags, car parts and, above all, bottles and cans.
“We’re helping the community, the place where we live. It’s important for them to know that this is ours,” said Elizabeth Rodriguez, a Spanish teacher at Four Rivers. “This is a lesson.”
For the Four Rivers students, Friday was one of their “expeditions,” a set of academic hands-on learning programs throughout the year.
Seventh-grader Skylar Alamed said the outing was both fun and important, and that it carried the same theme of a “wondering and inferencing” course the students had recently taken, which teaches reasoning and attention to detail.
“When you clean it up, it makes you notice things,” said Alamed, carefully picking up each out-of-place piece of plastic or glass from the ground.
The students were thorough, and several, including Bird Richards, said even though they were rapidly filling bags with trash, they actually expected to find even more garbage, and were optimistic about the efforts this weekend.
“I’ve heard this is one of the cleanest rivers in the area,” Alamed said.
According to the students, Four Rivers participates in the cleanups each year, which hopefully contributes to giving residents a clean water supply.
According to David Boles, a part-time worker for the conservancy, the annual efforts to clean the Green River are not just about beautification, but also about water health.
One staple of the Green River Cleanup that began three years ago is the removal of abandoned tires that could end up in the water.
Each year, hundreds of tires are removed from a Colorado Avenue ravine that leads into the Green River, Boles said. Another massive tire removal will take place Saturday, and Boles expects that 600 to 800 tires will be removed with the help of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, which will provide inmates and officers to help with tire removal, and the Greenfield Fire Department, which will hose down the tires.
The Green River Cleanup will be from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.
Reach David McLellan at dmclellan@recorder.com or 413-772-0261, ext. 268.