Volunteers will clean up canal

Augusta Canal users now have the chance to clean up after themselves.

The Sierra Club will hold the Rivers Alive Second Annual Canal Cleanup on Saturday. The event will start at 9 a.m. at the Savannah Rapids Lock and Dam, below the park's pavilion at 3300 Evans to Locks Road.

Club members and volunteers will be issued orange trash bags to pick up litter along an eight-mile stretch of the canal from Savannah Rapids to Lake Olmstead.

"We clean up from where people have just dumped along the banks and boxes of trash," said Bill Mareska, former chairman of the local Sierra Club chapter. "There's a whole lot of stuff in the water - paper cups, tennis balls, soda pop bottles, cans."

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About 40 people participated in last year's cleanup, Mareska said.

"People on canoes can pick up from the water," he said. "People can pick along the bank on foot or riding a bicycle, then bring all the bags to a dumpster at Lake Olmstead. We just about filled it up last year."

In addition to Sierra Club members, Mareska said he is expecting Fort Gordon soldiers and members of the Augusta Canoe and Kayak Club to participate.

A shuttle will carry volunteers and canoeists back to Savannah Rapids Park.

T-shirts will be handed out on a first-come, first-served basis to the first 40 volunteers arriving at the clean up.

For more information, call 863-2324, or visit http://georgia.sierraclub.org/srg.