R.I. Trail Cleanup April 4

CheapXJ and Scott, his friend from school, have scheduled a trail cleanup day for the "Chicken Run" trail in Rhode Island for Sunday, 4 April. Meeting place has not been completely confirmed, but as of now (30 March) the cleanup will go forward as scheduled. Looks like there's a lot of "stuff" out there to be picked up, so anyone who can possibly make it, please attend. Our making this effort could mean the difference between losing the use of this trail and keeping it open.

Here's the latest info:

Scott said:

As far as permissions, we were informed yesterday that not only is the Smithfield PD cool about it, we will more than likely have an officer out there on a 4wheeler on sunday helping with the clean up! We were also told by said officer that the highway department would pick up the trash. All we would have to do is leave the pile by the street and make the call. not sure if this is something we want to do or not, but the option is there for the stuff that we can't put into the dump truck.

The weather forecast keeps changing, so i would advise being prepared for the worst case scenario (rain) and throw some rain gear in the backseat just in case.

For the meeting place we are pushing for the home depot plaza that is located on route 44 (where we stopped to air down on the chicken run) In the back corner of the lot, behind the Kohls there is a locked gate that leads out onto wolf hill road. I am waiting for the person in charge of the maintenance of the lot to return my call. Our plan is to get that gate opened up for us. (wolf hill is the street that runs paralel and between 44 and 104) This way we can all easily get right out onto wolf hill without causing any traffic headaches.

As for the time. I would like to leave the parking lot at 10 A.M. sharp. so figure everyone needs to be at the meeting point by 9:30 so we can hold our meeting, pass out assignments, and so on. I will confirm this by tomorow afternoon. If this should fall through we do have a backup plan.


Now, ryan and i have made a few runs out there over the last few days to do some recon and size up the job. Here is a partial list of some of the crap out there:

Tires and wheels (LOTS OF THEM!! All types and sizes)
BIG old propane tank
Old Chevy V 8 block
a couple of tailgates
the wrecked tauraus
old matress springs
some car bench seats
old oil drum
an old kegarator
bottles, cans, misc small trash
an old toilet
lots of scrap wood (actual wood, not tree branches)
LOTS of shingles! (we found a pile with some still in the packages, and three rolls of roofing paper)
And a bunch of other crap strewn all over the place. banghead.gif

So we will definitly have our work cut out for us.

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Final meeting place and time will be posted as soon as confirmed.

Yep, thanks for posting this up here Eagle. The meeting place will be confirmed on thursday. I got blown off rather rudly by the guy in charge of the shopping center we originally wanted to utilize. so on my day off thursday im gonna go hunting for a new meeting place.

The BOD has approved this cleanup as an "Event." I realize that many members of the chapter aren't close to Rhode Island, but any chapter members or friends who can attend will be very welcome.

I've been watching the weather "forecast" (wild guess seems more like it) and previous predictions of showers have now been upgraded to just clouds. Stay tuned, but unless there's a last-minute change the event seems to be a GO for Sunday, 4 April. There will be people from other, New England-based, clubs attending as well. I would very much like to have represented so in the future we can turn to these clubs for information about legal trails and wheeling opportunities in New England.

I'll be there for sure, it would be nice to see alot of the crew come out and help cleanup, especially seeing as how many members have previously run this trail during the chicken runs.

As of right now theres a 40% chance of rain on Sunday. So i guess just be prepared. the bottom line is that its new england and its april. the chances of us getting a nice sunday arent great for at least another couple of weeks, all the plans are in place for this sunday so i say its a go ahead rain or shine. (hell, might get some sympathy from the greenies if they see us out there cleanin up in the rain). So, we are a GO for launch!!
Meeting Information!! (as promised)
We will be meeting in the Home Depot Parking lot in The Crossing At Smithfield shopping plaza on route 44 in smithfield. This is where we stopped to air down before we hit the trail at the last chicken run. The address of that store (for those who want to mapquest it) is
371 Putnam Pike
Smithfield, RI 02917
I picked this spot because it is right by the trail, and also right off of 295, so it should be easy for everyone to get to it. We will be forming up at the front corner farthest from home depot. it will be your first left into the home depot parking lot after entering the plaza. (where we stopped to air down) I Will be there by 9 A.M. to make sure everyone can see my rig and find us. (for those who dont know my rig, its a dark green YJ on 35s [i had 33s on the chicken run] with a lightbar and a black hardtop) Everyone should be there by 9:30 A.M. I will start the meeting at 9:35 SHARP!!!
At the meeting we will divide into teams, once teams have been chosen, I will be handing out the assignments and directions to the zone your team will be responsible for over the course of the day. I will also be giving detailed directions to each team as to which route they will use to go in, and so on. All this will be covered at the meeting so PLEASE be there by 9:30. I know there are a few who cant make it til later in the day, thats fine. we will just put you on a team when you show up. We will depart the Home Depot at 10 A.M. SHARP!!!!
CBs will be on channel 4
Each team leader should be someone who is familiar with the trail
Each team will HOPEFULLY have a pick up truck assigned to it. If possible i want one pick up per team to make moving the trash easier.
I think we have all of the loose ends tied up at this point. if anyone wants to contact any additional media, please feel free to do so. But from my point of view, this thing is set to go, and i've had about all the planning and phone calling i can take for a while, so unless anything else absolutly crucial comes up, this will move as planned!!

Folks, I STRONGLY recommend that you NOT contact any television stations. They aren't likely to cover it anyway, unless it's a very slow day, but TV news is too solidly anchored in "sound bytes" to really cover any story. We'd get 20 to 30 seconds of coverage, tops, and there's no way to predict how the studio would edit down whatever the reporter shot and said in the field.

We're much better off with print media, so we can talk, have the luxery of thinking before talking so we don't get trapped into saying something we shouldn't, and we can hand out a press release to help them write their story.

I know, the lure of big screen stardom is a siren song, but it could very easily backfire.

can non members join this ride and how hard is the wheeling. is there a place i can park a truck and trailer

of course. I'm not a memeber of either. (got a YJ so i kinda cant be)

wheeling isnt difficult at all. you should be able to leave the trailer at the meeting place. though bear in mind, this is more of a cleanup than a trail ride. the only wheeling is gonna be moving the trash from point a to point b

massxj said:

can non members join this ride and how hard is the wheeling. is there a place i can park a truck and trailer

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is your tow-rig a pick up?? this is for anyone who is interested in wheeling and doing their part to help out..... come on out.. the chicken at Wright's farm is excellent...
uh...... there is chicken afterward right?? it was mentioned before but hasnt been a point of conversation...

mike

If people wanna go for chicken they can... I probably will not be going for chicken due to lack of funds

CheapXJ said:

If people wanna go for chicken they can... I probably will not be going for chicken due to lack of funds

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You're going. After the work you put into this, I'll cover you if you're short.

Yes the plan is to go wrights afterwards. I tried to get a group discount, but apprently they dont do that. Hopefully i will be able to go to wrights. for some reason i got scheduled to work 5 to close tomorow, but i am trying to get out of it so i can go get some chicken after the clean up

Getting a group discount and then unleashing CheapXJ on them would be a VERY low blow :lickout:

Eagle said:

You're going. After the work you put into this, I'll cover you if you're short.

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after todays events... that won't be necessary

BTW, got your message (I was at work) runnin a wire won't be a problem with a 1' x 1' hole right behind my head where glass should be

It turned out to be a decent day for it and a decent turn out too :thumbup:

The Taurus after some creative winching:


The 4 ton roll-off was full :shocked: plus this pile between sections including about 40 tires was still growing when I had to split:


The bottles and cans were on the order of a thousand+, I think the idea (was it Earl's?) of leaving a few 55 gallon drums at the popular party spots (if permitted of course) was a great one; if you can't stop partying then maybe it could get people not to heave their bottles into the thorn bushes
I think it was a really succesful clean up big :thumbup: to Scott & Ryan for the follow thru in getting it on and everyone who showed up!

-Bic

Thanks for throwin up the pics Bic!

and a sincere thanks to EVERYBODY that showed up for the cleanup and for all the effort put into it. I am still AMAZED at the massive amount of trash that was out there. (I honestly estimate that we hauled out over TEN TONS of trash) we could have filled the truck 4x over!

The local landowners are extremely happy to see this happen. Met with hearty handshakes they even helped us clean up! Even the weather cooperated better than I expected (didn't start raining till about 3-4pm or so)


and the best part... to my knowledge... nobody broke anything party1: (definitely no major breakages)

TekkaMaki said:

I think the idea (was it Earl's?) of leaving a few 55 gallon drums at the popular party spots (if permitted of course) was a great one; if you can't stop partying then maybe it could get people not to heave their bottles into the thorn bushes

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Earle's the one who mentioned that to me, and I think it's a great idea. I can go talk to one of the landowners that I spoke to today and see who owns what and how they feel about doing this. Granted, I doubt that they like the use of the party spots (and maybe this is too much to ask of people as a whole ) but if we made it so trash was easily taken care of, people may start to get the idea and help out a little.

whatever the case may be, this event has opened many doors between us and the local landowners. We need to keep those doors open!

well i just goit in after ALMOST getting pulled over by a statey on 146 (though i think he might have been after ryan who flew by him) Anyway, i was going to make a new thread, but i'll just post it here.

THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO HELPED OUT ON THIS!!!

Despite me tardiness (which i am sure i will NEVER live down, hey my alarm didnt go off, give me a break huh?) I think today was an awsome success. the car team and another group left home depot before and as i was pulling in. The rest of us split up, six of us went in the back entrance and started on a huge pile of shingles (that ended up being three truckloads worth). Then we parked our rigs and began gathering trash and making piles.

While we were doing this a landowner who lives off to the left side of the trail materialized out of the woods five feet from me (scaring the crap out of me in the process). He began talking to me, basically the short and long of the convo was that he was thrilled to see us out there at work. He told us that the trail was last cleaned 5 years ago. and it has gotten worse over the last two years or so. he also said he would mention our work at their next HOA meeting. He also said that it isnt the number of people, or types of recreations practiced out there, its the trash. He also mentioned that he knows we are not the ones responsible for said garbage. Also, he was not the only land owner we ran into out there. And all of the landowners pitched in a bit and helped!! VERY COOL!!

Most of the ATV people really pissed me off today. they drove by us and gave us thumbs ups and waves, but didnt bother to help. Of course they had plenty of time to stop and watch us perform a recovery on the pit. (basically, ZJ went in to winch out a waterbed or something, then got stuck. took my yj and an XJ to get him out)

We completely filled a 4.5 ton garbage truck, and still had two HUGE piles by the road for the Highway department to pick up. at least 3 or 4 more dump trucks worth. I was truly amazed at the amount of trash we pulled out of there. Must have been at least 75 tires, some with rims, some not, i wish i had thought to take a pic of the scrap pile before we left. (Eagle, Ryan, and Myself were the last ones to leave, and the only three who went for chicken). We went back to the first section to pick up some stuff that got missed earlier. But here are the pics of the two from earlier in the day
http://albums.photo.epson.com/j/AlbumIndex?u=4188384&a=31180164&f=

All in all it was a great success. we got every last piece of trash out there. The weather cooperated for the most part. only really rained for the last two hours or so. It was a great day and a job well done. Thanks again to everyopne who came out to pitch in!!

The pile shown in the second photo grew MUCH larger by the end of the day. The dumpster we filled (to overflowing) was a 15 cubic yard container, and we could easily have filled three of them.

I would also like to commend Ryan and Scott for putting this together, and on behalf of and the North Atlantic Chapter I also want to thank all those who showed up. We had people from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania (Ryan), New Jersey (Scott) and Connecticut. I wasn't the only Connecticut Yankee; a group from Eastern 4 Wheelers came. Some of you may remember that E4W was the club that guided our first New England event, at Paine Hill, about three years ago.

I didn't see the reporter, but rumor has it that a reporter for the Providence newspaper did show up at some point, so we're hoping for a favorable write-up.

Eagle said:

The pile shown in the second photo grew MUCH larger by the end of the day. The dumpster we filled (to overflowing) was a 15 cubic yard container, and we could easily have filled three of them.

I would also like to commend Ryan and Scott for putting this together, and on behalf of and the North Atlantic Chapter I also want to thank all those who showed up. We had people from Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania (Ryan), New Jersey (Scott) and Connecticut. I wasn't the only Connecticut Yankee; a group from Eastern 4 Wheelers came. Some of you may remember that E4W was the club that guided our first New England event, at Paine Hill, about three years ago.

I didn't see the reporter, but rumor has it that a reporter for the Providence newspaper did show up at some point, so we're hoping for a favorable write-up.

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Yeah i wish i had thought to get another picture or two of the final pile before we headed out to wrights, but i was too tired n hungry.

I was more than happy to help put this together, it was way overdue (as aparent by the shear volume of crap we dragged out today). Now i gotta ask myself how long it will stay like that though