The third annual Rivers Alive! Savannah River Cleanup will be held Sept. 27 from 8 a.m.-noon, at the Historic Ebenezer Landing at the end of Highway 275.  The event is free and open to the public.

Volunteers are needed to help clean up the river.  Launching at the Ebenezer landing is free to participants, and the first 100 volunteers will receive a free Rivers Alive T-shirt. If you don’t have a boat but want to help, come on out and the team will get you plugged in.

Along with cigarettes and filters, aluminum cans, plastic bottles and other household garbage, some other items pulled from the river include tires, grills, coolers, car parts and bedding, which can harm plants, animals and humans who rely on the river.  Last year the Rivers Alive Savannah River Cleanup hauled in 1,440 pounds of litter from the Savannah River, and in 2012 just over 1,500 pounds, but there is still trash to be collected.

There are many ways that households can litter the waterways, besides dumping trash directly into the river that you may not be aware of like storm water runoff. Storm water collects runoff from lawns and agricultural fields, roofs, streets and rights of ways and carried in this runoff could be litter, animal waste, yard clippings, fertilizers and pesticides and soapy water.

This runoff can eventually end up in our rivers, lakes and streams.

The Savannah River Cleanup is held in conjunction with Georgia’s Rivers Alive! Rivers Alive is Georgia’s annual volunteer waterway cleanup event that targets all waterways in the state, including streams, rivers lakes, beaches and wetlands. The mission of Rivers Alive is to create awareness of and involvement in the preservation of Georgia’s water resources. Rivers Alive is held annually each fall and is a program of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division Outreach Program.

Georgians use the river for fishing, boating, camping, site and nature watching and relaxation in addition to its practical purposes of commerce and providing drinking water to Augusta, Savannah, Beaufort, Hilton Head and host of other municipalities along its meandering path.

The Savannah River is arguably one of the most important waterways of the state, draining 27 Georgia counties, traveling 313 miles south from Lake Hartwell across the Piedmont and Upper Coastal Plain until it empties into the sea at the state’s largest economic engine, the Port of Savannah.

For more information visit the Facebook page Effingham Savannah River Cleanup or www.riversalive.com/ra_cleanups.asp or contact Christine Kirkland at cpkirkland@aol.com or ckirckland@effingham.k12.ga.us.