Community comes together to clean Lofts Pond Park of debris

Early last Saturday morning, roughly 1,000 pounds of litter was removed from Lofts Pond Park with the help of players from the Baldwin Bombers Youth Football league, Operation SPLASH — Stop Polluting, Littering, and Save Harbors — Hangout One Happy Place, Boy Scout Troop 824, Girl Scouts of Nassau County, the Green Army, State Assemblywoman Judy Griffin, County Legislator Debra Mulé, and other residents.

The pond has been cleaned of trash on other occasions in order to help reduce the volume of plastic making its way into the ocean, but this was one of the biggest cleanups yet, Town of Hempstead Sanitation District No. 2 Supervisor Alfred Taylor said.

Bombers Coach Brandon Bailey saw the announcement of the cleanup, hosted by Mulé, Griffin and Sani 2, on Facebook, and contacted Mulé about helping. In lieu of the Bombers’ Saturday, workout the highly energetic 9- to-13-year-olds swept the pond for debris, alongside other participants.

Bomber Sebastian Barrera said it was important to do his part because, he said, “Nature gives us fruit and plants, and we need trees for air.” Fellow member Brandon Bailey said it was sad to see wildlife and garbage in the same setting. “There are ducks, turtles, animals and plants,” Brandon said, “and then you see the trash, like lots of trash, and people don’t do anything.”

Baldwin Middle School seventh-grade class President Ivan Barrera, soon to be an eighth-grader, said that in 10 minutes, he and his mother picked up 20 bottles, and that was only the start. The pond, Ivan said, was special to him. “I used to come to one of these ponds with my grandparents, and we’d feed bread to the ducks…,” he said. “The litter frustrates me a lot.”

Elijah Shaw, another Bomber, said he had seen the impact of trash on wildlife, and had a message for litterers. “Don’t litter,” he said. “It’s just nasty. I went canoeing once and there was mad trash, and I had to pick up a lot. A lot of fishes were there once, and then I went back two months later and they were all gone.”

Conner McGinley, also of the Bombers, said he would tell litter bugs to “pick up their trash and throw it in the garbage — it takes a single second.”

Griffin wrote about the event’s success and necessity on her Facebook page: “When you see the plethora of plastics in our waterways, it is an important reminder to keep our streets, parking lots, and parks clean: otherwise, these plastics drain into the sewers, can flow into our streams, ponds and lakes, and if not caught, the local bays and Atlantic Ocean. Through impressive teamwork and an outstanding turnout, Loft’s Pond Park certainly looked pristine when we left it.”

Volunteer Bill Stevenson, of Operation SPLASH, a Freeport-based ecological activism group, said it was important to catch the litter, especially the plastic-based variety, before it heads out to sea and breaks down into microplastic particles, which, if ingested by fish, can harm them and those who eat them.

“We clean up the canals, the bays, the marshes,” Stevenson said. “I think one of our best days, we keep track of everything — plastic, bottles, glass, cans, on (one of) our best day(s) was 900 plastic bottles in one day, two hours.”

The cleanup also succeeded in bringing diverse groups together for a common purpose. Taylor said that this was one of the biggest efforts he’d seen in recent years.

“I’ve been in sanitation for 26 years, so I’ve been at a lot of community events,” he said, “but this turnout was amazing. The Baldwin Bombers came out in full force, (and a) whole bunch of other individuals came out to help, so I’d say this is one of the bigger community events I’ve seen in a long time.”

Mulé also spoke on the massive community effort, “The outpouring of support that we witnessed from every corner of the community just goes to show how special Loft’s Pond Park is for Baldwin residents. It was a pleasure to work alongside Assemblywoman Griffin, Sani 2 and so many dedicated volunteers to beautify this cherished green space in our community and protect fragile ecosystems from the threat posed by litter and plastic pollution.”