In early June, more than 3,000 volunteers gathered throughout the state of Virginia for Clean the Bay Day, an annual Virginia tradition. Each year on the first Saturday of June, Virginians work to restore and protect the Chesapeake Bay by removing litter and debris from waterways, parks, and shorelines.
Since it began in 1989, Clean the Bay day has engaged more than 165,500 volunteers who have removed approximately 7.18 million pounds of debris from more than 8,250 miles of shoreline. This year, preliminary data show that at least 97,795 pounds of litter and debris were removed.
The event provides an opportunity for Virginians to give back to their local waterways and to learn about some of the greater, unseen problems faced by the bay watershed such as degraded habitat and polluted runoff, including nitrogen and phosphorus pollution.
