If you were buzzing around the city yesterday, chances are that you saw one of many Earth Day crews out cleaning up our urban neighborhoods. I ran into Councilman David Rivera (photo - far right) and one of the three teams from Buffalo State College cleaning up Grant Street. The workers were tackling the West Side of the street first before backtracking along the East Side. As I biked along I was dumbfounded at the difference the team had already made. Before Earth Day, Grant Street was a real mess. Now that it is a lot cleaner there needs to be some sort of routine maintenance to keep the street litter-free. I would think that the business owners would take the lead from these students who volunteered to help clean up the neighborhood. Grant Street needs some ‘No Littering $500 Fine’ signs to keep people aware that fines even exist.
When I arrived to the Scajaquada Creek I found dozens of people rambling through the banks in search of debris. This is where the Riverkeeper group had set up shop. A number of people were traveling down the river in skiffs pulling up garbage, while others were busy painting over graffiti under the overpass (photo - Timothy, Elisha, Tammy, Melany, Charisma, and Amanda). After the cleanup everyone was going to head over to the Polish Cadet Center on Grant Street for a picnic. If you didn’t get a chance to go out and contribute to the cause, Earth Day is not until Tuesday. That means that we still have a couple of days to do our part. With upwards of 100 new cadets on the police force it would be great if they could catch some of the litterbugs and taggers out there. And raise the fine for littering, just as they have raised the number of community service hours for tagging. One guy just got a few hundred hours. I hope they give him proper equipment to take down a good number of tags.
Remember, it's always Earth Day in your own neighborhood, or in front of your own business, or at your favorite park, or waterway...