River Gets a Cleaning

Twenty-four NRCS Earth Team volunteers spent two days cleaning up debris along the lower Pascagoula River — the last free-flowing river in the U.S. that drains into the Gulf of Mexico.

Find out more about NRCS in Mississippi

NRCS soil conservationist Wallace Cade, Resource Conservation & Development coordinator Rick Hagar, and the volunteers traveled seven miles up the river through three counties to clean up debris blown by hurricane Katrina into the Pascagoula,  marsh areas, a nature center, and Deer Island in the Gulf of Mexico.  Boats and ropes were used to haul out over a ton of debris including a refrigerator, several ice chests, tires, shoes, boat parts, and lots of Styrofoam.

“It takes forever for this garbage to break down naturally and it doesn’t belong in the waterways," said Mississippi Soil and Water Conservation District  Commissioner Greg Crochet.  “A lot of this land along the Pascagoula River is valuable recaptured land.”

As the volunteers returned home, tired from two long days of hard work, they saw an eaglet in a nest with a bald eagle perched nearby as if it were saying, “Thanks, NRCS Earth Team.”
Your contact is Jeannine May, NRCS public affairs specialist at 601-965-4337.