ZAP away trash in Blackstone River Watershed

The Grafton Garden Club and the Grafton Land Trust are coordinating a cleanup of the Blackstone River Watershed in Grafton as part of The Great Blackstone River Revival, ZAP the Blackstone’s 50th anniversary on Saturday, August 27 from 8 a.m .to 5 p.m. 

A watershed is all the land area that drains to a particular waterbody – the Blackstone River in this case. The Grafton ZAP event meeting place is the Mill Villages Park in South Grafton. 

The two groups are asking Grafton residents to volunteer to clean up Grafton’s waterways as part of the Great Blackstone River Revival. Local rivers and streams that feed the Blackstone River in South Grafton are Cronin Brook, Big Bummet Brook and Bummet Brook, Axtel Brook, Quinsigamond River, Miscoe Brook, Bruce’s Brook, Flagg Brook, and McNamara Brook. 

Cronin Brook, Axtel Brook and Miscoe Brook are all Cold Water Fisheries – native brook trout thrive there. They are the cleanest, coldest streams. 

ZAP 50 is the 50th anniversary of the great cleanup of the Blackstone River in 1972. Over 10,000 people volunteered in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and pulled all sorts of trash, appliances, furniture, vehicles and even a school bus out of the Blackstone River and its banks. 

“The River is greatly improved since the bad old days,” the group noted in a news release.