Volunteers at the Annual Darby Creek Clean-Up at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum. Credit: USFWS/Bill Buchanan.

Volunteers load trash at the Annual Darby Creek Clean-Up at John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum. Credit: USFWS/Bill Buchanan

More than 140 people volunteered on Saturday, April 23, for the Annual Darby Creek Clean-Up at the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge at Tinicum coordinated by Refuge Facilities Manager Mike McMenamin. School groups, scout troops, community service volunteers, Boeing employees, regular refuge volunteers and staff filled several dumpsters at two staging areas with about 80 cubic yards of a hodge-podge of refuse, including a refrigerator, hot water heater, all sorts of plastic items, paper products, demolition debris and tires. Fritz Thornton, past president of the Darby Creek Valley Association, noted that he was especially glad to see so many younger people pitching in, as they will have to take the reins of leadership one day in dealing with these issues. He also pointed out that this was just the first leg of the annual clean-up: the rest of the watershed, with 17 staging areas, was tackled the following Saturday. The refuge contains the largest freshwater tidal marsh remaining in Pennsylvania. McMenamin pointed out that, even though the refuge watershed gets a bit cleaner each year, we will always have to deal anew with refuse that comes both upstream and downstream each year.