Clean River Project moving from Methuen to Haverhill for cleanup

After hauling 17 tons of debris and brush out of the Merrimack River over the last couple of months — not to mention 700,000 wayward plastic disks from a Hooksett, N.H., sewer treatment plant — it is time to move on, says Rocky Morrison.

The founder and president of Methuen-based Clean River Project Environmental Patrol said that while the group will continue collecting debris and the occasional sewer disks, the bulk of his non-profit operation will be moving downstream to Haverhill to start a project that began last fall of cleaning up the riverbank there.

Morrison, with the help of other volunteers and a host of corporate and municipal partners, over the weekend began moving storage containers, equipment and floating booms used to catch debris, from the makeshift headquarters behind Hughes Motors on Riverside Drive in Methuen to the Crescent Yacht Club in Haverhill.

If the work in Haverhill is as successful as the work along the Methuen stretch of the river, the riverbanks below Lawrence should start looking pretty pristine before too long.

Last week, Morrison spent a few hours on the river in Methuen, working with one of his volunteers who operated the SS Jenny Jones pontoon boat to corral the floating booms along the edge of the river. The booms encircled a tangle of garbage and debris — mostly tree branches and tree trunks — that had been collected in recent weeks.

"We had 12 booms in place at various locations on the river," said Morrison, as two employees from Enpro Environmental stood knee-deep in the river, hauling out debris and putting it up onto land.

"It's amazing what we collect," he said. "We find dead animals, hypodermic needles, appliances, and huge logs. We pull everything out of here."

As if on cue, he pointed to a dead turtle resting upside down on a piece of wood. A red cooler bobbed nearby. Bottles — both plastic and glass — floated amid the mess, as did huge pieces of Styrofoam.

Morrison said he has been working with the city of Methuen, and Enpro, which has a contract with Hooksett to remove the disks, on clearing the river since the disks first started showing up in March. Millions of them washed out of a defective sewer treatment plant and floated down the river and out to sea. They have been found up and down the Atlantic seaboard, as well as along the river from New Hampshire to Newburyport.

While Enpro is collecting the disks, Morrison's group collects everything else, placing it in Dumpsters or enormous piles for removal by Casella Waste Systems of Salem, N.H. The wood collected by the booms is sorted by size and given away as firewood once it's dry, Morrison said.

"Everything is separated and recycled," Morrison said, after he drove the Bobcat he uses in his construction business into the river and pulled out an enormous tree trunk — probably 20 feet in circumference.

He said his group has once again partnered with Casella as well as with Team Haverhill and Windfield Alloy Inc., for the riverbank cleanup in Bradford and Haverhill. He said he would leave two booms in the Methuen stretch of the river to continue collecting the disks, along with one of the group's four pontoon boats. But that the rest of booms, and everything else — including the three more pontoon boats — are being moved to Haverhill.

Casella Assistant General Manager John Augusta said his company began working with Morrison in Methuen and will continue working in Haverhill.

"We are supplying the rolloff containers and the trucking for free as a donation," he said. "We decided to give the community a hand. We'll be moving on to Haverhill with Rocky."

Morrison said that Team Haverhill offered $10,000 to hire his group to spearhead the cleanup.

"We'll be in Haverhill all summer," he said, "taking out trees, refrigerators, appliances and other stuff stuck in the mud and along the edge of the river."

The city of Haverhill will be taking the trash and appliances, much like the city of Methuen did.

"If we didn't have support from Methuen, we couldn't do this," he said. "In this business, you need to create partnerships."

Eric Karlstad, vice chairman of Team Haverhill, said his group thought it was important to clean the river after last summer's drought created low water in the river, which exposed tons of debris along the edge.

"Team Haverhill made a donation last year to ensure we had Rocky's group and all his volunteers to help doing the cleanup," Karlstad said. "He knows what he's doing. We have a lot of confidence in him."