Trout Unlimited, with the help of a great many groups and individuals, on Saturday cleaned a 10-mile stretch of Camp Creek and its banks, collecting 3,280 pounds of debris in 120 large garbage bags.

Candy Adams, director of Keep Greene Beautiful, said about 70 people took part.
Representatives from Valk Industries and Premium Water, which are both located in the Camp Creek community, along with members of U-Turn for Christ, Greeneville High School students, and members of the Middle Nolichucky Watershed Alliance helped with the cleanup.

The cleanup began at about 9:30 a.m. and continued past noon.
Adams said members of Trout Unlimited worked very hard long before the cleanup, securing permission for volunteers to cross property lines to pick up litter on Saturday.

Nearly all of the creek bed is on private property, she said.
Bill Bennett, president of Trout Unlimited, said the cleanup surpassed the group’s expectations.

“Camp Creek is a unique little stream,” Bennett said. “It’s an asset to Greene County to have something like that, with all the little springs that feed it.”

“We really feel excited about working with the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, Keep Greene Beautiful and the Tennessee Valley Authority and local individuals” in cleaning the creek, Bennett said.

“We were very pleased with the level of local participation,” he added.
Bennett also expressed appreciation to Premium Water, which provided lunch, and to Valk Industries and Vulcan Materials for their support.

The largest group was Janet Ricker’s ecology class from Greeneville High School, which also collected the most trash of any group, Adams said.

The GHS group also found the most unusual items, she said, including a kitchen sink, a bank receipt from 1970 and a plastic swan.

Two youngsters, Jillian Valk and Reece Valk, won the award for “getting dirtiest” in the pursuit of a clean creek, Adams said.

Cleanup organizers had originally planned to cover 12 miles, Adams said, but wound up cleaning not only the creek but the surrounding drainage area or “watershed” for a distance of about 9.5 to 10 miles.

Many of the larger trash items collected came from the watershed area, “which helped tremendously, because they would have wound up in the creek eventually,” she said.