By Evan Greer
Jack Brady, vice president of the Shawsheen River Watershed Association, skillfully maneuvers his tire-filled canoe onto the slick and muddy shore of the Shawsheen River. "Are you the guys that ordered the tires?" he jokes.The "ground crew" laughs and begins to remove the wet and muddy tires from the canoe and add them to the growing pile on the shore. The SRWA's tire cleanup is underway.
During the three-hour cleanup in a Lawrence section of the river on July 20, 16 people, six canoes, and one dog managed to remove 156 tires, breaking the old record for this section of the river, which was 125.
"I think that the river is worth putting back into the condition that it once was in," said Bob Katz, of Andover, who is on the executive board of the SRWA. "If more people knew about the Shawsheen as a recreational resource, they would be more respectful of it."
Aside from the plurality of muck-filled tires, the clean up crew removed two shopping carts, one bicycle, a large metal drum with "Ciudad de Lawrence" (City of Lawrence) painted on it, and a large blue wire contraption that won the award for "Most Unidentifiable Object of the Day." Many more objects, including an abandoned refrigerator could be seen marring the natural beauty of the river, but this cleanup was focused on tire-removal only and such items were necessarily left behind. "It really is a very nice river, but it's been abused," says Katz. "(SWRA President Bob Rauseo) and I paddled through three or four weeks ago. It was really beautiful, we saw deer, great blue heron — except for the noise from 1-495, you would think you were in New Hampshire somewhere, instead of the middle of Lawrence."
Suzanne Robert, also of Andover, is one of the founding members of the SRWA. As Hydrogeologist at the Department of Environmental Protection, she can provide some insight into where all the tires in the river come from. She says most tires aren't dumped directly into the river, but rather are dumped elsewhere and carried to the river during a rain or runoff from melting snow. Robert has come to four river cleanups during the past few years.
Brady, an Andover resident, says he's participated in more river cleanups than he can count and was pleased with the day's progress. He points out that most of the river's problems come from the abuses of individual people, not widespread misuse by corporations, as was the case in the past. Katz agrees, saying that if people would have more respect for the river, these cleanups might not be necessary. "It'll be nice to see the day come when this will be something that you only have to do once a year instead of multiple times a year;' he says.
Most of the participants in the cleanup were seasoned tire— pullers, but a few new faces showed up, including Richard McCarthy, formerly of Andover and now a Lawrence resident, who was participating in his first river cleanup. A senior citizen member of the SRWA, McCarthy kept the official tire count, and told stories about his childhood on this section of the river. "I got poison ivy for the first time right over there," he told the ground crew, removing one hand from the large truck tire he was wrestling with to point out a clearing where poison ivy still grows. Diane Rusckowski, of Andover, came after reading about the cleanup in the Townsman. Although she admitted to "tiring out" quickly Rusckowski said that she was interested in coming to more cleanups and bringing her sons as well.
The rest of the cleanup crew consisted of canoe enthusiasts environmental activists, a boys group from Lowell on a community-service trip, and a small dog. "You'd be amazed at how much work dedicated people can get done," said Brady, referring to a past cleanup, when one member single-handedly removed more than 100 tires from a different section of thc river.
By noon, the path from thc river to the road is lined with tires in varying states of disrepair. The next step will come days later, when those members who have trucks will come and load the tires into the back bringing them to stations where they can be disposed of. The cost of disposal is $2 per tire, more if the tires still has a rim, and truck tires — those more than 16 inches — must be transported to a different site. They also cost more to dispose: $12 per tire. The SRWA has a grant for $2,500, given by the New England Grassroots Environmental Fund, to dispose of the tires.
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