SOUTH PORTLAND — Volunteers spent part of Thursday pulling 40 large bags of litter and trash out of a tributary of Long Creek, a stream that flows near heavily built-up areas near the Maine Mall.
Springtime river cleanups are common, but this trash may be used to help design new ways to keep waste from getting into Long Creek, as well as other threatened watersheds in Maine and around the world. A private environmental firm is using Long Creek to study ways of keeping litter out of waterways.
“Trash in water is an enormous problem, it is only growing and we are seeing a lot of demand for screening technology, especially in our Asian market,” said Bridget Domareki, spokeswoman for Hydro International, a United Kingdom-based company with an office in Portland specializing in stormwater treatment systems. Pollutants can affect drinking water, kill wildlife and damage sensitive ecosystems.
Hydro plans to study the trash collected Thursday in South Portland to help understand what materials are getting into the stream and whether new filter designs could screen some of it out. “It is a local study, but it has applications globally,” Domareki said.
More than 30 volunteers from Hydro International and Fairchild Semiconductor, which has a manufacturing plant in the area, pulled Styrofoam cups, plastic bags, food wrappers and other debris from three parts of the South Branch of Long Creek, a tributary that flows near the Maine Mall commercial area.
About 80 percent of the trash and debris that end up in lakes, rivers and the ocean is washed into watercourses from land by stormwater, Domareki said. Very few watershed trash studies have been done on the East Coast, so Hydro’s inspection could provide valuable regional insight, she said. The company plans to share its findings with other stormwater experts.
“If we know regionally what types of materials are more prevalent and how they break down, we can make smarter designs,” Domareki said. That goes for plastics that deteriorate into tiny pieces and are extremely difficult to remove after getting into a watershed.
“If you can keep it out of the water it is much easier to clean,” Domareki said.
Efforts to restore the health of Long Creek, which has been designated an urban-impaired stream, have been ongoing since a watershed project was created in 2010, said Damon Yakovleff of the Cumberland County Soil and Water Conservation District.
Landowners with impervious surfaces such as paved parking areas along the Long Creek watershed in South Portland, Scarborough, Westbrook and Portland contribute money to help pay for various projects aimed at cleaning waterways. Volunteers were already planning a Long Creek cleanup as part of the United Way of Greater Portland Day of Caring, so it provided the perfect opportunity to collect material for the Hydro International study.
According to Yakovleff, volunteers found more trash than he expected. Better filters could help, but the best solution is to not litter in the first place.
“Every little bit helps, that’s the message,” he said. “Everyone can do their part to prevent trash from getting into waterways.”
Peter McGuire can be contacted at 791-6325 or at:
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