On Tuesday, July 30, 176 tires were turned in at the Hawkins County Solid Waste and Recycling Center, free of charge.
Members of United Citizens of Hawkins County, as well as a few members of Care NET, helped me — Codie Pate — accomplish more than I could have hoped for in a whole month of kayaking and doing this by myself.
This all started in early July. As I leisurely kayaked on nice, sunny days, I noticed more and more trash and tires in the North Holston River. I quickly became ashamed of the state of the river; all the trash and tires made it abundantly clear that this river has become the county’s illegitimate dump site for folks unwilling to do the right thing.
It began with just me and my personal mission to clean the river a little at a time. When I began this mission on my own, I figured I would dig up and haul out maybe a few dozen tires and a couple of bags of trash.
Instead, I was greeted with the glaring reality of the uphill battle I faced. For every tire I dug up, I found three more. There were hundreds of tires and multiple trucks full of trash, ready for the picking.
Jeff Cattrell volunteered his boat to assist me on this mission, and it was a godsend. My mission soon blossomed into a wonderful opportunity to “give a little bit back” or “do my good deed for the day,” but on a much larger scale.
I brought my experience to the attention of United Citizens of Hawkins County, a local community group dedicated to making a positive impact in our community.
The group agreed that something needed to be done about the Holston River on a larger scale. As a group, UCHC picked a date and invited all of Hawkins County (via a front-page article in The Rogersville Review, spots on WRGS radio, and digital flyers distributed to the My Rogersville Facebook group) to join us in the cleanup effort and make the area we live in just a little bit better.
I won’t downplay my disappointment at the minimal turnout on July 27. After all, this is the Volunteer State. In this instance, the volunteers were “quality over quantity.”
Two fellow UCHC members joined me in the cleanup crew by kayaking and floating down the river, then digging out, stacking and loading tires for an entire day of hard, yet rewarding, work.
Hawkins County District 4 Commissioner Chad Britton was generous enough to donate his time and the use of his boat, and with the help of another member of UCHC they formed the barge crew. They made many trips back and forth from “Tire Island” and Christian Bend boat ramp, and they did the really heavy hauling.
We had two more members of UCHC making up the boat ramp crew with their trailers, loading up the tires as they came in hourly. That crew was joined by three Care NET members who have also taken up the daunting task of cleaning the river and restoring some of this county’s natural beauty.
This mission is far from over. We have more than 50 tires already stacked and waiting to be hauled and at least another 50 to 60 to dig out of this tiny stretch of the river.
But I hold my head high and give my heartfelt thanks to the citizens who answered the call. They didn’t just sit around complaining and talking about how someone needs to do something about this. They are the men and women who rolled up their sleeves and did the hard work when nobody else would even as others floated by, waiting for the problem to magically fix itself.
The 176 tires we managed to vacate from the river were almost all found in an area no larger than a half-acre. That’s 176 and counting. Let’s continue the good fight.
Contact UCHC at uchctn@gmail.com if you are interested in joining any of our future community service events.
Codie Pate
Published in The Rogersville Review - August 2, 2024
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