BUFFALO, N.Y. — Over a dozen volunteers spent time Thursday afternoon cleaning up trash along Scajaquada Creek.
The effort was led by the Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper, and part of their routine clean sweeps of area waterways.
"Scajaquada Creek is one of the most impaired waterways in the state," Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper project manager Emily Dyett said. "It suffers from combined sewer overflow inputs when we have heavy rain events, which also collect storm water runoff from all the way out in Cheektowaga."
Volunteers removed over 200 pounds of trash from the bike trails and the creek shoreline during their sweep event.
"The litter data is how we're shifting our cleanup," Dyett said. "So it's not just about picking up trash and putting it in a garbage bag, it's actually recording it and making those efforts last beyond today beyond this next couple of hours.
Dyett and other volunteers weigh and catalog the trash so they can better understand what's being tossed and why.
"We're able to really look at what types of litter that we're finding, and that can help drive those community driven solutions really understanding what is it that we're finding."
The BN Waterkeeper is currently working on a shoreline resiliency study, funded through the Ralph C. Wilson foundation. The study will look at how the shorelines along the creeks and lake have been impacted by severe weather in recent years.
"Hopefully once those studies come together, that's where we're going to see that more millions of dollars of investment come forward," Dyett said.
The Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper is hosting an open house on Saturday, September 9 between 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. at their office located at 721 Main St., Buffalo.