Et cetera : NCCC-FEMA Corps cleans up Hudson riverbank

NCCC FEMA Corps members from the Vinton campus clean the Hudson River Bank.

By Moses Sunbeam

On Saturday, March 2 a pair of National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC) FEMA Corps teams, in partnership with an AmeriCorps New Jersey Watershed Ambassador, organized a community trail clean-up in New Jersey’s Palisades Interstate Park. The group of service-oriented young adults and community volunteers spent the late morning and early afternoon on Palisades Interstate Park’s State Line Lookout Trail cleaning out trash and debris from Hurricane Sandy.

The group of about 30 hiked approximately a mile from the visitor center area down to the Hudson River’s bank and set to work at the site of Peanut Leap Falls. A small portion of the group stayed near the base of the falls and worked on re-creating the stream’s washed out rock-crossing. Meanwhile the rest of the group picked up debris along the riverbank trail returning with barrels, tires and full trash bags which were piled together to be picked up by boat at a later date. By the end of the event the trash the NCCC-FEMA Corps teams and the volunteers removed from the hiking trail formed a pile about 20 feet in diameter and included 25 bags of trash and 13 tires of varying sizes.

The Palisades Interstate Park Commission was created in 1900 to preserve the unique natural landscape along the Hudson River. The park provides visitors access to numerous outdoor attractions which require constant upkeep and protection. Hurricane Sandy and other recent storms have created more maintenance projects than park staff can manage alone and they depend on the assistance of groups such as NCCC-FEMA Corps volunteering to help keep the park safe and beautiful. Christina Fehre, the Park’s Trail Supervisor, was very excited at how much was accomplished, mentioning several times that it would have taken her and the park staff considerably longer to accomplish as much of the same work as the group got done.

Given the harsh local winter weather and the nature of their work serving in FEMA’s Joint Field Office (JFO), the NCCC-FEMA Corps members haven’t found many chances to enjoy the outdoors. Therefore this event came as a welcome change of pace in work setting and work style for the young adults involved. “It was great to get out and do some hands on work,” said Spencer Neptune, a member of Pine 4 who was on the rock-crossing crew. “We were moving huge rocks; it was very technical. Also I was working closely with Christina and talked to her about how she got into her job, since I’m interested in a similar career."