By Joe Wojtas
The New London Day 8/26/2017
Mystic — Volunteers from local schools and businesses led by Mystic Aquarium will once again spend eight hours cleaning debris from a 10-mile stretch of Mystic River shorefront and surrounding areas on Monday.
The Mystic Wide Cleanup and its after party will conclude the aquarium’s Summer Night for 2017, which offered reduced admission and special educational activities on Monday nights throughout the summer.
The goal of the cleanup is to remove 500 pounds of debris. A similar effort in May 2016 involved 220 volunteers, who removed 547 pounds of garbage from the river and adjacent areas.
Volunteers can help for some or all of the initiative, which is divided into two-hour cleanups in four separate areas.
From 10 a.m. to noon, the group will focus on an area along Jerry Brown Road and Coogan Boulevard after meeting at the aquarium’s front gate; from noon to 2 p.m., the cleanup will shift to Route 27, with participants meeting in the main Mystic Seaport parking lot; from 2 to 4 p.m. it will move to downtown Mystic, meeting at the Mystic River Park; and then it will cross the river to clean up River Road from 4 to 6 p.m., meeting at the River Road boat launch.
Each site will be stocked with safety and cleaning supplies. The full schedule is available at bit.ly/MysticClean17.
All cleanup volunteers will receive complimentary admission to the aquarium from 6 to 9 p.m. Monday. A band will perform.
Among the groups and businesses working with the aquarium on the cleanup are Big Y, Mystic Lions, Save the Sound and Clean Up Sounds & Harbors.
