Volunteers are needed to help clean and preserve the State’s 70,150 miles of rivers and streams during Rivers Alive, a joint program of DNR’s Environmental Protection Division and Keep Georgia Beautiful. Rivers Alive targets cleanups across all waterways in the State of Georgia including streams, rivers, lakes, and wetlands. The mission of Rivers Alive is to create awareness of and involvement in the preservation of Georgia's water resources. This year’s event is expected to, once again, be the State’s largest single volunteer effort to beautify Georgia’s water resources. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR) encourages sportsmen’s clubs, civic groups, church groups, businesses and interested citizens to participate in this worthwhile effort.

"The Rivers Alive program motivates thousands of volunteers across Georgia to help clean up their local waterways," said Dr. Carol Couch, Director of the Georgia Environmental Protection Division. "This impressive display of volunteerism can be measured in the many tons of trash that are hauled away each year."

During the Rivers Alive event, an estimated 28,000 volunteers statewide will stage hundreds of cleanups in Georgia’s streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands and ocean from Lake Blue Ridge in North Georgia to the Ochlockonee River in the South. The 2004 River Cleanup drew 23,000 volunteers, who cleaned over 1,250 miles of waterways and removed over 590,000 pounds of trash and garbage including tires, shingles, balls and washing machines from the State’s waterways, according to Mitch Russell, Coordinator of Georgia’s Rivers Alive. Russell expects Rivers Alive 2005 to involve thousands more volunteers and to continue to be the State’s and the South’s largest volunteer effort to beautify water resources.

This event is supported by sixteen sponsors - Ocean level sponsors: Georgia Power, The Ocean Conservancy; Lake level sponsors: Canon, The Coca-Cola Company, International Paper, UPS; River level sponsors: BellSouth, Georgia Ports Authority, Kodak Polychrome Graphics, MeadWestvaco, Oglethorpe Power Corporation, Plum Creek Timber. Contributors to Rivers Alive include Georgia Pacific Corporation, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, Gold Kist and Chevron.

Other sponsors of the statewide campaign include: Georgia Adopt-A-Stream, Georgia Department of Natural Resources Environmental Protection Division, Keep Georgia Beautiful and Affiliates, Georgia Department of Community Affairs, Canoochee Riverkeeper, Clean Coast, Inc., Clean Water Campaign, The Coca-Cola Company, Columbus Waterworks, Georgia Land Trust, Georgia Project WET/River of Words, Georgia Power, Georgia River Network, Georgia Wilderness Society, International Paper, Keep Columbus Beautiful, Lake Lanier Association, Macon Water Authority, MeadWestvaco, National Park Service – Chattahoochee Recreational Area, Oxbow Meadows Environmental Learning Center, Peavine Watershed Alliance, Plum Creek Timber, South Georgia Regional Development Center and dozens of other local organizations will be sponsoring individual cleanups around the State.

To volunteer/participate in a local cleanup effort or to obtain more information about the statewide campaign, call 404-675-1636 or go to www.riversalive.org.

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