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Every year in the spring, MITA volunteers head out to Trail sites to “open” them up for the season. This involves some scouting work done by staff and volunteers, as well as cleanups, which are large volunteer mobilizations in some of the regions on the Trail – Casco Bay, Muscongus Bay, Deer Isle and Downeast – to clear marine debris.
This year was no exception to the amount of trash picked up by volunteers. The Deer Isle cleanup this spring had a first-time guest, MITA Trustee Rob Nichols. He has spent time on the Trail and volunteers his time helping develop MITA and the Trail as a trustee, but had never been on a cleanup.
He was amazed at the passion displayed by the volunteers, the logistics managed by the MITA staff, and all the trash that had piled up on the islands over the winter. 50 bags of trash and 100 salvageable buoys off 13 islands were recovered from this group effort!
Working with the local fishing community, MITA collected the usable buoys volunteers found and dropped them at the fishing pier in Stonington at the end of the cleanup day. Rob reported back that most of them had been reclaimed by the next day!
Thank you so much to the volunteers who made this day possible. The Trail looks better for your efforts!
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