For the fifth straight year, the Greene County Steam Plant will coordinate its annual “Renew Our Rivers” campaign to help clean up our rivers.

With help from the U.S. Corps of Engineers, the community clean-up effort will take place on Friday, Sept. 18, and Saturday, Sept. 19. Those who want to help should come to the city landing.

“A friend of mine in Gadsden, Ala., started this program. He called it ‘Renew the Coosa,’” said Bob McCants of the Greene County Steam Plant. “This thing has spread all over the country.

“It’s not just cleaning up our waterways and properties, but it’s also used as an educational tool to train and help teach young people not to pollute.”

Workers from the Greene County Steam Plant and the U.S. Corps of Engineers will begin that Friday at 6:30 a.m. and will go until the late afternoon. The clean-up will begin anew on that Saturday at 8 a.m. and will continue for much of the day.

Lunch will be available, and T-shirts will be provided for volunteer workers.

“The Corps of Engineers has been working with us for years,” McCants said. “They’ll have two boats down there on Friday and three or four on Saturday, so we’ll have plenty of boats to carry anybody who wants to go on the river and help pick up material, either in the water or on the land. We’ve got parks around here, and the Corps would be glad to take people to the parks, even into Foscue and do other projects, if they want to.”

Volunteers should wear comfortable shoes and clothes to work in. They need not bring anything with them, as trash bags and bins will be made available.

“We’ll have life jackets and garbage bags,” McCants said. “We’ll pass them out. All people need to do is just come down there.”