The Choctawhatchee Basin Alliance (CBA) of Northwest Florida State College in partnership with the City of Destin, the City of Fort Walton Beach and the Okaloosa County Environmental Council are sponsoring numerous sites for the Ocean Conservancy’s International Coastal Clean-Up on Saturday, September 19, 2015. A list of sites and details can be viewed by visiting the Ocean Conservancy’s website at- www.oceanconservancy.org. For information regarding the clean-up efforts at Norriego Point and Liza Jackson Park, please visit- www.basinalliance.org.
The Okaloosa County Environmental Council has been participating in the clean-up for almost two decades. This year, CBA is working with the Environmental Council, the City of Destin and the City of Fort Walton Beach to expand Okaloosa County’s site list, adding Norriego Point and Liza Jackson Park to the line-up. CBA will additionally host a site in Walton County, at Eglin AFB’s Bay Flats Recreation Area in Freeport. All locations will hold a clean-up event from 8:00am-10:00am, and encourage the community to join their effort to reduce the impact of marine debris in the Choctawhatchee Bay estuary. Last year, the Ocean Conservancy had 560,000 volunteers remove 16 million pounds of trash from 91 countries world-wide.
“We hope that the community will come out to join our clean-up effort. In a tourist-driven economy such as ours, it is priority that we keep our local waterways healthy and sustainable. One of the largest contributing factors to the decline of a marine ecosystem is trash breaching our shorelines. We hope that by hosting additional clean-up sites, we will increase awareness for these issues and decrease the amount of marine debris present in our waterways.”- Sarah Davis, Outreach Coordinator for CBA.
Volunteers are encouraged to wear closed-toed shoes, weather appropriate clothing, and to bring gloves to the clean-up. Additional supplies for the effort will be provided to volunteers upon arrival to the site, so please arrive early to ensure proper instruction and preparedness for the clean-up process.
For more information regarding the Coastal Clean-up sites in Okaloosa County, or to schedule an interview regarding the Coastal Clean-up efforts at Norriego Point, Liza Jackson Park and Bay Flats Recreational Area, contact Sarah Davis- Outreach Coordinator for CBA at daviss26@nwfsc.edu.