Horner is a manager for the Alice Ferguson Foundation’s Potomac River Watershed Cleanup, which has its annual cleanup day scheduled for April 10. At the event last year, volunteers pulled 270 tons of garbage out of the river, including 41,122 plastic bags and 2,095 tires.
Do you see the river improving?
I feel like trash is still a major problem on the Potomac. Every year it does tend to get a little bit better in part because of cleanup, in part because of legislation that gets passed, I’m speaking specifically of the bag fee in D.C. We at the AFF believe we can be trash free on the Potomac by 2013.
That seems a lofty goal. How do you plan to do that?
Trash is an absolutely solvable problem. If everyone in the Potomac rivershed would get our message and stop littering today, the Potomac would be trash free by 2013.
How many volunteers are you expecting at this year’s cleanup?
Last year we got close to 14,000, and we expect more this year.
And if someone wants to volunteer, what do they have to do?
Log onto our Web site and all the cleanup sites are listed. You just need to get in touch with one of the site leaders that’s local to them.
Do you need to bring trash bags?
No, we’ll provide bags and gloves. [But] if volunteers can bring their own gloves that is encouraged.
What’s your own experience on the Potomac?
I’m born and raised in Gaithersburg and I’ve spent my life, hiking, fishing, biking, anything I can do on the Potomac River.
What’s the weirdest thing you’ve heard of being pulled out of the river?
They found a prosthetic leg one year. Somewhere there’s a guy without a leg.
And if he’s looking for it, you guys have it?
Contact [the Alice Ferguson Foundation]; it’s a little waterlogged.
– Alan Suderman
