Annual Week of Rivers Cleanup

Join us during Week of Rivers 2026 for our annual river cleanup effort. In addition to leaving put-ins and take-outs a little cleaner during the week, we will have a concentrated cleanup event on Monday June 29. Partnering with Swain Clean and Mainspring Conservation Trust, we will do a shoreline cleanup below Ela Dam on the Oconaluftee River. (Address is:  310 Dam Rd, Whittier, NC 28789) This is just upstream of the confluence of the Oconaluftee and Tuckasegee Rivers. In the past we have been fortunate to have the river do most of the work for us and deliver trash down to Fontana Lake and the Old 288 Boat Launch Area. This year the lake is about 15 feet lower than normal due to an unusually dry spring and where there is normally still lake water, there is whitewater. But fear not, there is trash aplenty just below Ela Dam, where it gets deposited in eddies during high water events: lots of plastic, foam and other floating debris left behind when the water recedes.

We will need several open canoes to help ferry trash, equipment and people to and from the far shore. Long pants and good shoes recommended. Swain Clean will provide bags, baskets, grabbers, gloves and other useful tools to assist with the pickup. We will stop around noon and have lunch and get a brief presentation from Mainspring Conservation Trust, the new owner of Ela Dam, discussing the project to remove the dam altogether.

Please be there no later than 9:30 in order to have an accurate headcount for lunch.