Displaying items by tag: nobody trashes tennessee

Volunteers that came out to clean Wheeler Lake of the Tennessee River in Decatur, Ala. helped to remove 4,017 lbs. of trash, nudging Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful past their 600,000 lb. milestone at the last cleanup during Keep the Tennessee River Watershed Beautiful Month in October.  Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful

Volunteers collected 25,397 pounds of trash from waterways during Tennessee River Month

More than 100 volunteers who came out to participate in river cleanups to celebrate October’s ‘Keep the Tennessee River Watershed Beautiful Month presented by TVA.’ They helped Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful (KTNRB) cruise past its milestone of 600,000 pounds (or 300 tons) of trash removed from the Tennessee River watershed since it became a nonprofit. To give a physical perspective — a Boeing 747, one of the world’s largest planes weighs 300 tons — the weight of trash removed from the Tennessee River watershed.

For context of the group’s momentum: KTNRB removed 47,756 pounds of trash before putting its first boat in the water in 2019.

“We’ve come such a long way in a short window of time, and it’s all thanks to the good people who volunteer their time to protect their waterways by cleaning trash that wasn’t even theirs,” said Kathleen Gibi, KTNRB Executive Director. “This year has been full of new records broken, and the records belong to those thousands of volunteers who have made a commitment to this precious river system of ours.”

Professional angler Ish Monroe removes yet another bag of trash and a broken chair piece to take back to shore during a cleanup ahead of this weekend’s Bassmaster tournament on Fort Loudoun Lake.  Ben Pounds/Hellbender Press

Ahead of marquee Knoxville lake showdown, pro anglers fish trash for fish on

KNOXVILLE — The 2023 Academy Sports + Outdoors Bassmaster Classic presented by Huk will be in Knoxville March 24 through 26 with competition on the Tennessee River lakes of Fort Loudoun and Tellico. 

Ahead of the competition a crowd of volunteers, including several competitive anglers, were out working in the humblest way. They picked up garbage from the banks of Fort Loudoun in the Louisville area. 

The pros were joined by people associated with Keep the Tennessee River Beautiful and Yamaha Rightwaters, all of whom banded together to gather Fort Loudoun Lake’s garbage on Tuesday, March 21. They walked along an exposed shoreline, grabbing garbage both large and small. Among the larger recovered items were a traffic safety barrel, a broken chair and the ruins of an old boat.

This cleanup wasn’t just for the sake of preparing for the the tournament. It also represented a desire to conserve the river’s wildlife for its own sake.