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River cleanse
Waterways drowning in trash
River01WEB
Warren County Interact Club member Alex Jones removes trash from the Barren Fork River on Saturday as part of a massive volunteer effort to clean local waterways.
When Alex Jones wrestled a tire from the Barren Fork River on Saturday, fellow volunteer Barry Gooch encouraged him to keep looking."If you find three more, you can build a car," said Gooch.Tires, boots, pillows, and even a chain-link fence were among the items removed from local waterways Saturday during the 10th annual River Cleanup."I'm surprised by all the junk we're pulling out of here," said Jones, who was participating for the first time.Volunteers found more than 300 tires in just three miles of water the first year of the cleanup, according to organizer Neal Cox. That number was way down this year, providing evidence the annual effort is producing results.Tama Popplewell found tubing attached to a bottle lid as part of an apparatus that looks like it might have been a meth lab."It's scary to pull this out of our water," said Popplewell, who added she's not surprised by the volume of trash. "I did this on my own three or four weeks ago and came away with three large piles."A huge piece of sheet metal that could have been the side of an automobile at one time was pulled from the water near the Beersheba Street Bridge by students Landon Spivey and Kaylee Smith.