That’s two Mondays in a row. The front page of the Gazette on Sept. 26 and Oct. 3 showed people working to put natural places right.
Elsewhere on those pages, we had unfortunate things to report — a fatal fire in Greenfield, for instance, and a mall shooting in the state of Washington.
But the lead local photographs both days showed groups of determined people armed with power-washers or trash bags. What they do is a gift to all.
This week, a story and video by Sarah Crosby and photographs by Andrew J. Whitaker chronicled Naima Workman’s quest to stamp out ugliness atop Mount Tom in Easthampton. Last week’s coverage detailed efforts by Source to Sea volunteers to remove trash from the banks of the Mill River in Northampton, one of the many Connecticut River tributaries to get that attention Sept. 23 and 24.
Call them environmental Good Samaritans. They restore treasured places, erasing signs of human use and misuse.
Throughout the year, people in the Valley take time out of their private lives for public good. Much of their work goes unheralded. In Northampton, the Office of Planning and Sustainability runs an Adopt a Trail program through which people sign up for projects and general caretaking. A lot of projects happen yearly, like the Source to Sea effort, an autumnal version of spring cleaning.
For some participants, these cleanups hit home because they regularly visit the parks, streams, trails or ponds being gussied up. While out picking up litter, people rekindle acquaintances or make new friends. They fill trash bags and come home fulfilled.
This past Sunday’s project in Easthampton took it to a new level.
Up at the top of Mount Tom, the team that Workman assembled used special biodegradable solvents to remove an ugly and growing billboard of signatures and profanity from what should be a noble little summit. “I can’t imagine moving a stone out here,” one volunteer said of the place, “much less writing your name on it.”
Today, the mountaintop is mostly free of unsightly smears of paint.
This was no small feat. Workman ran a crowdfunding campaign to raise several thousand dollars, then gathered 20 volunteers and secured help from some experts, including the owner of a construction company who outfitted participants with gear needed to operate safely at such heights.
Some who turned up knew each other; others had never met. In the way of such communal actions, everyone left as friends.
Workman has steeled herself to see new graffiti appear. She plans to remain vigilant and return as needed. “I feel like they’re not going to be as determined as I am,” she told Crosby.
But for a while at least, signs of human intrusion have been removed from the rocky outcropping.
The Mill River’s run through Northampton is looking pretty spiffy too. That Source to Sea cleanup location also drew 20 volunteers, inspired by the same spirit of rallying against an environmental affront. Half were employees of the site sponsor, New England Environmental Inc. of Amherst.
The Connecticut River Watershed Council, which began the program 20 years ago, held similar local cleanups in Hadley, Amherst and Sunderland.
On the Mill River, participants in matching yellow T-shirts filled trash bags with bottles, cans and oddities like a roll of metallic silver paper; the worst objects found in years past, like refrigerators, had been removed in earlier cleanups. Organizer John Sinton encouraged people to explore as well as clean. Getting people in contact with local rivers is part of the mission.
One volunteer, Susan Norton, is a Mill River regular. She said she always travels with a plastic trash bag and returns from her river walks with litter.
Who is it on your street who stops to pick up trash? Have you thought of joining them?