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Volunteers ready to 'clean sweep' Erie Canal

NYS Canal Corp.

Earth Day is this weekend, and for the 13th year in a row, New York State Canal Corporation is holding its annual Canal Clean Sweep.

The Canal Corporation is expecting nearly 3,000 volunteers to fan out across the canal and help beautify the area, along with celebrating the centennial of the canal system, formerly known as the Barge Canal.

In Monroe County, there are 12 designated Clean Sweep locations along the canal with most open to the public. The map of locations is located on the Parks & Trails New York website.

One of the cleanup locations will be at the historic junction lock on Long Pond Road in Greece, just south of Ridgeway Avenue. Scott Copley, planner for the town of Greece, says that the cleanups have had an impact on the cleanliness of the canal in Greece.

“We had a big pull the first couple of years with a lot of stuff,” Copley said. “Six or seven hundred pounds, I think, the first year.”

The town’s Clean Sweep is at 8:30 a.m. Saturday and the public is invited to take part.

“We’ve got some T-shirts for people, some trail stickers, and trash bags and gloves available for everybody,” Copley said.

Last year, there were more than 100 cleanup events along the 524-mile canal corridor, which includes the Erie, Oswego, Champlain, and Cayuga-Seneca canals.