This weekend I spent some time in Downtown Salisbury and was disgusted with the conditions I saw on the River. After taking the above photos I immediately made contact with members of the City Council who in turn contacted the Mayor. Both City Council Members and the Mayor made the trip to this area of the River and immediately called in Public Works to clean it up.
Now, mind you, this consists of paying Public Works over time to come in on the weekend and take care of the problem. There were 7 large dead fish and one dead goose floating in just that area and heaven only knows what might be found elsewhere.
While Delegates, Senators and even the Governor try to pass blame on Famers for the condition of the Chesapeake Bay, come on Folks, the pictures do not lie. No sooner did this get cleaned up, (believe it or not) 20 minutes later there was yet another pile of pollution floating in that area all over again.
The last photo is just one of the reasons why we have such problems and pollution. The Council did their job, the Mayor did his job and Public Works did theirs. Now its time for you to do yours. We must, (as a community) do something to curb this problem.
Do you really want people visiting Salisbury and seeing these conditions. Use this Post to help come up with answers. You know money is tight. Can we get volunteers in pontoon boats to canvas the River on Friday's and Saturday's? Can we get volunteers to help pick up trash on a regular basis, including the Plaza area and well known areas like the last photo?
Give it some thought and lets see what we can do to help make the City of Salisbury something we can all be proud of. I look forward to your thoughts and ideas.
21 comments:
I agree it is a people problem, but it is not a problem that one community can solve. Trash will float up and down the river with the tides. As long as rivers have tides, there will be floating trash. People just give no thought to the conditions their trash has on the environment. Even with river and street clean in Salisbury 24/7, I doubt there would be much improvement. Look at the Millions spent on the Chesapeake over many years. We hear same old, same old - the Chesapeake is dying. Good Luck in your pursuit!
people need to learn not to discard trash haphazardly, but i dont think americans ever will. the government on the other hand has no excuse either. they are still builing 6feet tall drainpipes from the streets into the river with NO FILTERS. another new one is in the process of being built right now. I'm told the filters cost about $180,000. compared to the cost of the project both in money and damage to the river that looks pretty cheap to me. i can show you some govt employees whose salaries would pay for that filter. oh well what do i know. thanks sjd
Unfortunately, 99.9% of the people causing the problem will not be reached by a plea on the internet.
Hire 1FT person to keep the river clean, make the street sweepers cover the area around the river more frequently & have police enforce the littering laws.
Hey we can all do our part...on colbourn mill road I see a retired doctor and a friend picking up trash. I see them at least once a week. If they can do it so can WE. Think before you throw out anything on the streets/roads. It is YOUR community too. The government is not there to clean up after you...take care of this yourself!
joe, this is another example of you being proactive without pointing fingers. in fact, you gave credit where credit is due. i appreciate the recent turnaround! this deserves a big pat on the back for you!
Not only does the river area look deplorable look at Route 13 South from SSU to Fruitland the medium is grass & weeds much over the eight inch rule, trash litters business buildings parking lots,signs, rentals in the city the front along the roads maybe cut but backyards are never cut, I guess no one uses weed wackers because weeds grow up the side of houses two foot or more in highth, and eventually they become tree highth. The storm doors fall off and they are lucky to have functioning doors. We are New York City, they cleaned up their act, and thanks to Mayor Schaefer Baltimore streets are cleaner!
come on joe, you ever seen the riff raff that lives in salisbury. They don't even take care of the homes they live in. This is what happens when the majority of housing in the city is rental property. They have no stake in making the community a better place!
It would be nice to think people in this area cared, but I really don't think there is any respect for anything anymore. We took our Boston Whaler to the Springfest a couple of years ago, tied up by the hotel, came back to find someone had thrown a cigarette butt in it, and of course it left a burned spot. To me, that is just ignorance.
This time of year peoples' actions are dispicable, too. The goslings and ducklings are all over and some people treat them like moving targets on the roads.
I don't see people changing or caring for anyone or anything that is not 'theirs'.
These pictures are just proof that most people don't care about anyone or anything anymore.
How about getting some of the detainees in the jail to do some public service? What else are they doing-watching TV?
When will you guys get it? The public works dept. has NO supervision. They need an agenda and prioritize these things , they could clean this city in short order. Those guys do nothing!
Dear Mayor , check your public works dept.!!I should say "check your loafing workers". I saw a truck load of em at rite aid getting sodas at (9:12 am.)
instead of the fire boat they should have bought acouple of trash boat with the straining lifts to clean up. it would get more use and cost a lot less. and there's another idea, instead of paying overtime to public works employeses, and rather than allow the firement to ride around town between calls, let them do the clean up. that's a nice central area of the city, near where the old firehouse used to be and should have stayed, so dispatch times won't be hurt.
Atlantic Marine has offered to clean the river with the trash skimmer they bought from the city years ago. It is still here and in working condition. they don't even have to hire another person with benefits and can get rid of the Salisbury Navy with their crab nets.
How about getting some of the detainees in the jail to do some public service? What else are they doing-watching TV?
Atlantic Marine has offered to clean the river with the trash skimmer they bought from the city years ago.
That seems to be a good start.
Omg those river pictures are horrible and disgusting, I can't believe it. I live on the plaza and yesterday the cops were there breaking up the bums from fighting and throwing things around like the trash can. Thank you to spd and I will tale my daughter out this weekend and we will pick up trash, and would also participate in a community clean up.
Time to get the prisoners from WCCC over to clean up the trash
Instead of the many court brief charges that are not prosecuted, maybe the courts should require some minor offenders to do several hours of community service work...sentence them to clean up the city and be supervised by public works.
Yes the river is just nasty but the dead fish are Mud Shad and they come up the river to spawn and then die. The dead goose...well who cares about the over populated geese anyway.
Why is anyone knocking public works? They only pick up the trash, maintain the zoo and park, streets, provide water, literally process your poop, fix water and sewer main breaks normally in the dead of winter, remove snow, etc... all while not getting any type of raise in 5 years, lower budgets, less workers since the hiring freeze and a general public that has no appreciation or concept of how difficult the work can be.
How about an organized cleanup day, Joe? If your blog is an influential as you say it is and you are all about helping out the communities you could easily organize an event to get people out on a weekend to cleanup.
It may be public work's job to clean up the mess, but it is our responsibility to keep our community clean. If they can't do it alone, we should help.
dear public works whiner... quit your job then. there are plenty of us that would GLADLY take your place without complaining.
They have been blaming farmers for years they are the scapegoats.Now they are requiring permits for poultry farmers to grow chickens what will the money be used for to line their pockets with cash none of this will be used to clean up anything.Kepp on blaming the farmers its so easy for them to do instead of face the facts
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