140 Tires Out of the North Fork!

Thank you so much to the great crew at Virginia Eagle Distributing Company, the Shenandoah Riverkeeper, and the amazing landowner, for making this tire cleanup a smashing success!

On a chilly October morning, the crew assembled in the parking lot of a local church. Graciously taking a break from his family’s annual apple butter boil, the landowner led us through his fields to access the area in which, on a scouting float this spring, Shenandoah Riverkeeper Program Manager Alan Lehman noticed an accumulation of tires.

With so many tires embedded deep in the banks from years of sitting, the tirelessly dedicated crew from Virginia Eagle Distributing Company employed pick axes and brute strength to get 140 tires out of the muck and dirt, up the steep banks, and to the Shenandoah County Landfill. FNFSR’s Julia Sargent and Riverkeeper’s Alan Lehman were right there in the mix, working as a unified team to make a big difference for the North Fork!

We hope that there will come a day where there are no more tires to clean up in the North Fork. Many large accumulations like this one come from historic dumping, where tires have moved with the flows and floods and finally get lodged in a particular spot. Have you come across an area with an accumulation of tires or other litter on the North Fork or its tributaries? Email us at friends@fnfsr.org. Would you like to learn how you can get involved in activities to support the health of the North Fork? Click here to sign up to volunteer with Friends!