Historic Germanna

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You are here: Home / Conservation / Germanna Foundation Supports Rapidan River Clean-up

Germanna Foundation Supports Rapidan River Clean-up

August 5, 2015 By Germanna Foundation

For the past few months, the Germanna Foundation facilitated the clean-up efforts of another area non-profit group called StreamSweepers.  StreamSweepers is a youth job corps program focusing on river restoration.  Each summer about a dozen area young adults are trained and paid a stipend to go out on our area rivers to perform ecological assessments and trash removal.  The group is set to finish cleaning the entire Rapidan River this summer, a project which started two years ago.  This is the first time an entire river valley in the Commonwealth of Virginia has been cleaned!

First the “Sweepers” perform an ecological assessment by looking at variables such as bank height, bank geometry, bank cover, buffer and more.  They then return to the river to remove all the trash they find using canoes and people power, which means digging tires and floating their trash out to various locations along the river, and then removing and properly disposing of it.   StreamSweepersOnTheRapidan2015

The Germanna Foundation provided Rapidan River access to the group from our Visitor Center / Siegen Forest property.  The sweepers removed more than 100 tires from the stretch of the river near Germanna alone, along with other trash including rugs, cans, bottles, televisions, tarps and even a playground slide.

All told, StreamSweepers removed more than 300 tires this summer along with hundreds of pounds of other trash from the Rapidan from Raccoon Ford to Elys Ford.  They will complete their ecological assessment report which will be available on their website this fall.

Although their work was sometimes very hard and dirty, they reported enjoying the company of the bald eagles which are generally in view every day along with all sorts of other creatures including eels, herons, large schools of fish, beavers, turtles, snakes and even some rather large carp!  It looks like the river is teeming with life and we are grateful for their efforts to encourage a healthy ecosystem.

The group has expressed their appreciation for Germmana’s support of their efforts as it is critical to have partners who allow access to the river to get this work done.  On a quick side note, two of the Sweepers are Germanna Community College students.

Filed Under: Conservation, In the News, Siegen Forest Trails

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The rich tapestry of Germanna’s history encompasses Indigenous peoples, English colonists, German immigrants and their descendants, and African and African American communities. Historic Germanna invites individuals to explore the diverse stories of the past through its places, research, and shared narratives, fostering engagement and inspiring a deeper understanding of our collective heritage.

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Tuesday-Friday: 10:00am-4:00pm
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Germanna sits on 170 pristine acres along the Rapidan River in Orange County. Visitors are invited to enjoy the Siegen Forest Trail System that includes four trails totally nearly 5 miles. Learn more

Historic Germanna
MAILING: P.O. Box 279
LOCATION: 2062 Germanna Highway
Locust Grove, VA 22508-0279
Phone: 540-423-1700
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