“We usually pick a known dump area,” Nate Welker said. The pre-cleanup usually targets a place that is either not very accessible by boat or where there is so much material that removing it during the regular cleanup just doesn’t make sense.

That, and, “we’re getting the word out about the cleanup,” Welker said.

The 12th annual Conewango Creek Cleanup will be held on Saturday, Sept. 11. Information and registration is available through www.conewangocreek.org.

The annual Allegheny River Cleanup will be held Sept. 16 through 18. Information and registration for the 13th annual event is available at alleghenyrivercleanup.com.

Times Observer photo by Brian Ferry Allegheny River Cleanup pre-cleanup volunteer Christian Forshee hauls a bag of garbage out of a dumpsite off of Grunderville Road Thursday evening.

Six volunteers — among them organizer Sue Nielsen, Welker, Christian Forshee, Mikayla Lathrop, and Ben Thomas — spent about three hours Thursday evening off of Grunderville Road in Pleasant Township collecting decades worth of dumped garbage, tires, and appliances.

Nielsen picked the location for this year’s pre-cleanup. It was a familiar one.

“A few years ago, we took 50 to 60 tires from here down the hill to the river,” Welker said.

The dump site extends for hundreds of yards along the road. It is still used to some degree, but not as much as before. “Most of this is historic, but there are still some people dumping out here,” he said.

On Thursday, the volunteers were working up to the road rather than down to the river. They removed “so much glass,” Nielsen said.

That glass was among the estimated 8 to 10 cubic yards of trash picked up.

They removed 23 more tires, three toilets — one of them pink, four televisions, a mattress, a metal folding chair, a lawn chair, a rolled up carpet, and significant portions of both a washer and a dryer.

Anyone interested in joining the effort to clean up the county’s watersheds is encouraged to visit the cleanup sites and register.